7 Shortcuts to Making Money Online

It is easy to make money online, but like with any other jobs or businesses, the guarantee of steady income depends on the level of dedication you can give, and the extent of your knowledge in the activity you are venturing into. Beware because there are many scams, impractical jobs and careers online that might just waste your time instead of use it for something that can actually provide you decent livelihood. The good news is that this article will give you better ideas to make money online the fastest and easiest way possible.

Your search is over. Here are seven proven ways to make money online.

1. Earn by selling items on eBay.

eBay is one of the largest e-commerce sites today as it continues to attract millions of customers looking for great and unique deals that no other online stores can offer. You can sell and auction brand new items, antiques, hand-made crafts, rare items, what have you. There is no limit to what you can sell, so the potential for this business to make money online is enormous. There was a time when a lady auctioned her forehead for a permanent advertisement using tattoo, and a company actually bought the deal.

2. Make money online fast with affiliate programs.

Affiliate marketing is the "it" thing in home business because you can earn passive income without allotting more time to it. If you have the knack for writing reviews and creating promotional contents, you can convert your talent to make money. With affiliate programs, you get commission for every product sold through your website, which can be tracked using a unique ID (link).

You need to have your own website or blog for this. The potential for income is only limited by your traffic, so you might need to build your network as early as now before you can expect it to pick up.

Darren Rowse, one of Amazon's leading affiliates, earns an average of $90,000 a year simply by promoting products belonging to the bestsellers list. The road to success and finally earn money online was never easy, though. In 2003, as he started to incorporate Amazon's affiliate program in his blog, he just earned a couple of hundreds of dollars per month. However, as his traffic increased, he began to earn bigger commissions up to what it is today.

3. Make money online by becoming a full-time virtual assistant.

The demand for virtual assistants is high because many small businesses and professionals now resort to this system in managing their files, emails, social media accounts and customer service management needs. The rate at which you can make money greatly depends on the services you can render, but the more flexible and skilled you are, the more you can earn.

Even if you raise your price to a ceiling higher than what regular office-based assistants earn, you can still get decent employers as the overall expense will still be lower (i.e. no benefits and leave credits to be paid).

4. Publish eBooks on Amazon and Barnes and Noble

The best way to make money online for highly promising authors is by publishing eBooks and selling them to frequented sites like Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can easily make money online because these two sites are the leading sources of eBooks for tablets, smart phones and computers. Amazon, in particular, has a continuously expanding market for Kindle users.

Do you want to learn how to make money online by being an eBook author? For every copy sold, you get a certain percentage of the selling price, which means your profit has the potential to reach great heights. Even if you just sell 1,000 copies a month, at $9.99 a piece, you can make money online and earn almost $3,500 for that month.

Michael Prescott was a frustrated author who had many rejections in the last 30 years. eBook publishing opened another door for him as his self-published thriller made it to the USA Today's bestselling list, selling more than 800,000 copies and still counting - the same book that was rejected by more than 25 publishing houses.

5. Earn by answering surveys

Answering online surveys does not really pass for a permanent replacement to a full-time job, but you can still make money online just by answering e-forms for five to 45 minutes a day. On top of that, you can earn free products and gift vouchers if you will join focus groups that are hired by companies to test new products before launching.

6. Make money online as a freelancing manager

The freelancing marketplace is a big community of virtual employees and employers across continents. E-lancing is becoming the new face of sideline, home business and freelancing on all parts of the world as it is more convenient yet still lucrative. You can make money online more than what office workers earn without leaving your bedroom.

As a freelancing manager, you will be in charge of the outsourcing requirements, including manpower pooling, project supervision, liaison, training and quality checking. There are thousands of employers looking for long-term freelancers at huge volumes. Your job is to provide the employees they will need by being your own recruitment team. The potential of this job is so promising that you do not even have to take projects yourself just to make money online.

The top freelancing marketplaces are oDesk, Elance, PeoplePerHour, Guru, Thumbtack and Flexing It.

7. Start monetizing your blog

Blogging can be more than just a hobby, and Perez Hilton is a living proof of that. When he started gossiping about Hollywood stars and playing with their pictures online by doodling over them, his approach to tabloid reporting was seen as unique, engaging and fun. From there, he created a whole new platform for entertainment reporting. Fast forward to 2014, he is now the highest paid entertainment blogger among those who make money online.

Like with any blogger trying to make money from writing, he started earning from ads until talent fees came in through interviews, guestings and appearances. The point of this is that your potential to earn is limitless if you also have huge traffic to boast about.

Many PPC vendors like Google AdSense pay huge amounts to bloggers who attract niche markets. All you have to do is concentrate on one industry, improve your style and make your website look professional. Thrown in a well-planned internet marketing strategy, and you can gain thousands of visitors in no time and make money online like everyday is payday.

3 Basics That You Must Know When Using Social Media For Business

When using social media for business correctly you can connect with your target market, maximize your visibility, bring in leads and generate sales. Most individuals and businesses are connected to at least one social network site so social media marketing has never been more important. Here are 3 basics that you must know when using social media for business.

1. It's The Window To Your Business

Social media sites are becoming the main place where people go when they want to find out more about your business or your products. Instead of visiting a website, a lot of people will use their preferred social network channel to see if your business is on there.

Of course, you can't be on every single site. But your business should have a profile on the sites that best represent your target market, your brand and your products or services. When somebody finds your business on a social media site they should be able to immediately get an idea about your business by looking at your profile image, heading, links and description. Ensure that you complete the profile sections as fully as possible.

2. Produce Good Content To Develop Loyal Following

Social media for business is more than just sharing posts. It's a place where your audience can learn more about your business. When you create and post good content that offers value to your audience it will build your authority in your chosen niche so that your audience come to know, like and trust you.

Your content material should be unique and not constantly promotional. You need to create and share your content on a regular basis. This enhances the interaction with your audience and keeps them interested.

3. Use It to Build Relationships With Your Audience

Social media for business should be used to improve interaction and socialization. If you simply use it to only promote your products or services your audience will soon start to ignore you. Use social media to build relationships. This is done by following others, responding to comments, and sharing with other people outside your circle. Connect with others who have similar views to you.

Keep an eye out for Twitter Lists and Facebook or LinkedIn Groups that you can join. When you can contribute to a discussion or post in a constructive manner, it can raise your profile and help you to reach a new audience. Once again, don't be overly promotional and offer value.

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The Promise of Online Affiliate Marketing

When Amazon.com first launched in the mid-1990s as the world's biggest online bookstore, no one could have imagined how it would grow into the behemoth retailer of practically everything under the sun. Yet that's how online e-commerce has evolved in the past 2 decades.

E-commerce sales on Amazon.com this year are ready to touch a mind-boggling $1.2 TRILLION, making it one of the largest - and fastest growing - business sectors the world has ever seen. Millions of online sellers are building their own amazing selling machines on the platform every day, and leveraging the massive crowd of buyers that Amazon has aggregated on its platform to sell a host of different things.

And we're nowhere close to slowing down. In fact, most experts tell us that we are on the cusp of a mighty expansion in capacity that is set to dwarf everything else we've seen until now. The good news is that this creates a lovely opportunity for any enterprising entrepreneur, big or small business owner, to take advantage of this book.

Many vendors including those with 6-figure annual revenues from e-commerce ventures on the Internet began their careers as affiliate marketers. They offered products and services that were created by other businesses, and saw that there was potential in the niche. They then went on to build businesses around these areas and fulfill orders themselves.

Amazon was one of the popular choices for affiliates to learn the ropes about e-retailing. And as they grew to offer products across wide swathes of the online marketplace, millions of affiliate marketers flocked to the portal to sign up as associates and promote these products to their own audience of buyers.

They could offer the world's top brands and best-known products directly to their homes, by ordering them over the Internet. Online retailer affiliates didn't even have to touch a product or ship it out to buyers. They just earned a healthy referral income from referring new customers to the service.

Anyone who already comes from a retail selling background will find this very appealing as they can now attract new audiences to offers over the Internet and by advertising on social networks like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. It's even possible to develop a nice supplementary sideline to an existing offline retail chain, where the website and online customers become additional assets to your company that complement regular in-store buyers.

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5 Reasons Your Online Business Needs Social Media

Marketing online continues to evolve and grow and these days social media takes a front seat in most online marketing strategies as supports the growth of business. The reasons to use social platforms to engage and reach customers are plentiful; here are 5 of the main ones.

Reason #1: Reach

Why do the managers of these sites spend countless hours planning, posting, testing, and perfecting their platforms presence online?

• There are 3 billion active Internet users and 2.1 billion of them have social media accounts.

• YouTube has more than 1 billion users, more than a 1/3 of all web users. Each and every day web visitors view hundreds of millions of hours on YouTube that generate billions of views.

• Facebook has nearly 1.4 billion users, that's 47% of all Internet users. 4.5 billion Likes are generated daily and nearly 75% of Facebook's revenue comes from mobile advertising. 936 million Facebook users login in at least once daily and 52% of marketers found a customer on Facebook in 2013.

• Twitter has 316 million monthly active users that 500 million tweets each day

• Google+ has 363 million users that hit the +1 button on 5 billion times per day

• Pinterest has 100 million users, 85% of which are women. 47% of Pinterest users purchase a product based on pins, with the average sale being $58.95. 67% of pinned content is from a business site and 82% of Pinterest users would rather follow a brand than a celebrity.

Impressed yet?

These stats are just one reason to use it to market your business that really illustrate the reach that it can have on your business, be it online and brick and mortar. Here are 4 more reasons to make social media a part of your marketing plan.

Reason #2: Building Relationships

Using it allows you to reach people at a more personal level. Many marketing experts explain that social media is about relationships building, that as a side effect brings about conversions for calls to action. When you connect with people and they connect with you, they are more likely to follow your brand and all it has to offer.

Reason #3: Show Off Your Best Content

It allows you to show off your best content, and highlight all your brand has to offer. Whether you use text, images, video, or all of the above, you can tailor your campaign to present and impress your target audience with the very best content, products, and services that your brand has to offer. Tailoring your campaign through social media allows you to meet many objectives, including, building brand reputation, customer engagement, a better customer experience through valuable information and any other goals that meet your marketing needs.

Reason #4: Steady and Reliable Traffic

Who isn't sick of fighting for organic traffic when Google keeps wiping sites off their SERPS with one after another of their ongoing updates? Social media can bring a steady, long term, reliable and ongoing stream of traffic to your sites and blogs, without having to worry that some entity will come along and wipe you out.

Reason #5: Control

One of the greatest benefits of using it is that you have full control of what is presented about your company, brand, and website to your target audience. You can tailor your marketing plan to meet specific goals and not leave anything to chance. The multitude of tracking, and testing tools available, such as, Klout, SumAll, BuzzSumo, and TweetReach, just to name a few allow you to enhance and tweak your campaigns as needed to constantly improve your efforts to boost conversions.

Bottom Line

There is no better time than now to take advantage of all these sites have to offer. If you have an online business and do not have a social media presence then you are behind the times, it's really as simple as that.

There are many expert guides online to get you started, and educating yourself on the intricate process that is social media marketing is critical to your overall success.

There is also the option of hiring a marketing expert. Take care to choose a competent professional, it will not be cheap, but may well be worth it when they bring the results your business needs to succeed.

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7 Ecommerce Trends For 2017

Like previous years, 2017 is expected to unfold new eCommerce trends which businesses such as yours can benefit from.

In less than a month, we bid farewell to the year which ushered in an upsurge of mobile shopping, social media campaigns and cloud-based inventory management, among others.

However beneficial new trends are to one's business, expect a lot of the old ones to continue into the new year.

Here's a list of tried and tested eCommerce trends which will continue to increase your profits and improve your customers' user experience.

#1 Social Media Buy Buttons

Sure, you use Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter and other social media sites to promote your products.

But have these sites helped increase your conversion rate?

If you answered "not quite", then you're probably missing a vital feature on your social media pages.

Customers prefer spoon-feeding to thinking.

They won't waste their time trying to figure out what you're selling or how to buy it.

Make all necessary information obvious to them so that all they have to do is tap on their screen or click their mouse.

For example, instead of just connecting your online store to your Facebook page, set up a buy button in the latter.

That way, they can buy an item which they like straightaway without having to go to your store.

#2 Product Videos

If you failed to take advantage of video marketing this year, list it as among your key strategies for 2017.

People are easily drawn to product demonstration videos, as watching them is the closest thing possible to touching a product.

You'll find a wide range of paid and free recording software on the Web, such as Camtasia, Jing and EZVid to name a few.

Check them out and see which one works for your site.

#3 Mobile Marketing

Mobile commerce or M-commerce will continue its upward trend.

Survey finds over 70% of consumers will shop on a website whose product and checkout pages are easy to navigate on any handheld device.

That explains why your eCommerce site should have a responsive design which works on mobile devices as well as desktop computers.

#4 Mobile Payment

Since a large percentage of online sales are expected to be made through mobile devices, chances are we'll be seeing more walletless payment schemes.

Apart from smartphones, a lot of online retailers will be receiving contactless payment through various devices that use Radio Frequency Identification or RFID technology.

#5 Cloud-based Inventory Management

Keeping count of the items in your inventory to ensure they don't run out of stock is one of the things that you should be doing on a daily basis.

If you're not yet into cloud-based inventory management, you should start looking at it for efficient tracking and updating of your inventory.

#6 Same Day Delivery

Amazon and eBay will continue to have same-day delivery in their shipping options, so it's only logical to echo them.

If you've been running your online store for more than a year, you should know by now that the customer is always king; the worst thing you can do to a king is make him wait.

So satisfy him with great service and you'll be rewarded with not only higher sales, but more loyal customers.

Remember that customers are so good at that cost-free marketing tactic called word of mouth.

#7 Fitting Data Software

Hopefully, more retailers in the footwear and apparel industry will utilise fitting apps or software to reduce their product returns.

The number one reason why customers return stuff which they purchased from your store is wrong size.

With tools like True Fit, you can provide customers information on their actual size based on the current style and size of their footwear or clothes.

There goes our list of trends to rule the eCommerce world in 2017.

Which of these have you already tried or been doing, perhaps?

Online sellers don't be left behind. Multichannel marketing is the quickest route to reach your customers. UnderstandingE offers tutorials on Magento, M2E Pro, Magmi and other eCommerce tools that allow you to sell and earn more on Amazon, eBay and other 
marketplaces.

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How to Get Started and Make Money with an Online Business

It’s never been easier to start your very own profitable
online business. Whatever your niche, whatever your 
product, whatever your industry, there’s a place 
for you in the marketplace.

There are several factors at play here.

• More people than ever are shopping online. According
• to industry watcher Mintel, 69% of Americans do so 
• regularly.
• The software and online tools available make it 
• possible for anyone to build and manage an e-commerce 
• website. And you can do it for well under $100.

• Marketing online is cheap and easy - again, anybody 
• can do it. And with social media platforms like 
• Facebook, there are ever-increasing ways 
• to reach your customers.

But how do you get started? How do you go from 
where you are now to a massive passive income that 
allows you to quit your day job and enjoy ultimate 
time and financial freedom?

Well, you start from the beginning and go from there. 
Here are the steps to creating your online business, 
proven methods used by thousands of successful
online entrepreneurs.

Pick a Profitable Market

This is where you have to set aside your own ego for a 
minute. You may have had a “dream business” in mind 
for years. You just know in your heart that a certain
niche is profitable… that a certain product will 
sell like gangbusters. But until you do the actual market 
research you won’t really know. And it’s not worth 
investing your startup capital… creating products… or 
setting up a website until you know for sure a particular 
market is worth pursuing.

Basically, you have to start with the market first. You have to identify what niches are popular right now… and what types of products are hot. But be careful not to pick something out that is a flash in the pan and will go away soon. (Remember those wheeled “hoverboards” that were all the rage around Christmas - where are they now?) Instead, you want something with staying power.

There are many markets like this like pet care, exercise programs and weight loss, nutritional supplements, natural cures, travel, photography, video games, golf… the list goes on.

Some ways to identify a hot market are to look at online retailers like Amazon.com. What are the top sellers? Keep an eye on the news. Pick up magazines and see what’s advertised or what is being written about. Also, what are people talking about on Facebook… and what’s being advertised? All this provides clues for finding a potentially profitable market.

It may seem counterintuitive, but you want to see a lot of competition in your market. It’s actually best, at least for a small-scale entrepreneur like yourself, to not be a pioneer that is first to market. You want to go where there’s a ready and large group of people ready to buy.

What’s left is matching one of these hot markets with something you’re interested in. With so many potential markets out there, you’re sure to find some way to match your passion with profits.

Find / Create Products to Sell

Once you’ve picked your hot market with profit potential, it’s time to figure what to sell them.

You have two options: find existing products to promote as an affiliate or create your own products. Each has advantages and drawbacks.

But first, you have to figure out what types of products you should you sell. Again, you can look at sites like Amazon and eBay to figure out what types of products are selling best in certain niches. For example, in the weight loss niche, diet books, and exercise programs sell very well. And there are many companies and online merchants offering them for sale.

A low-risk way to get started with products is to sell other people’s products. You don’t have to spend time or money to develop them, they’re proven to sell, and you won’t have to worry about delivery (either in the mail or electronically), storage, managing orders, customer service, refunds, or anything like that.

This is called affiliate marketing.

Basically, you do the marketing and customers order through your e-commerce site. But the company that created the product handles the rest. And, as an affiliate, you get a commission (from 5% and up, depending on the product) every time somebody buys. This is a great way to get started with your business.

Amazon has a good affiliate program, with a huge variety of products. Clickbank.com specialises in information products, although they have physical products too. You’ll find big-name retailers on CJ Affiliate by Conversant (formerly called Commission Junction). But just about every niche and industry has an affiliate program - do some online digging if these don’t fit your market or business.

Of course, if you’re ready to create your own products, you could do that too. But you wouldn’t want to create a physical product necessarily because that can require a big upfront investment with no guaranteed return.

A lower risk way to do sell your own products would be to create information products: ebooks, membership websites, videos, audio programs… For example, if you were in the organic gardening niche you could have an ebook special report on growing organic watermelons or a video showcasing the best techniques for pest control without pesticides.

If it’s electronic it can be easily stored online or digitally, and delivered the same way. That makes it extremely low cost and automatic. The only thing you spend to develop these products is your time and expertise.

Set up Your Website

You have your market… you have your product. Now it’s time to set up your online storefront, which is where you’ll market and sell your products.

You don’t have to be a tech genius to set up your own website… and you don’t have to hire an expensive web designer either. With the software and online programs and services available today, anybody can create a professional-looking website with a shopping cart, list building capabilities, blogging - in short, everything you need for your thriving online business.

And the best part of all is that it’s either free or very low cost. With programs like WordPress or Squarespace they offer ready-to-go templates. Creating your site is as easy as filling up boxes with your sales pages, email sign-up boxes, filling in your products in your shopping cart, and other content. If you can send an email, you can do it. Plus, you can update and change your sites look, its content, and everything else whenever you want.

These are robust platforms, with plenty of apps and plug-ins for search engine optimisation, your marketing efforts, analytics to track visitors to your seat and much more. As far as hosting and picking a domain name, you can handle that through these services or go on your own with another service like GoDaddy. It’s up to you.

Why not hire a professional to build your website? They’re expensive for one. They take forever. You have to contact them (and pay them) whenever you want to make changes. And they charge by the hour, which isn’t good when you’re on a start-up budget. Besides you don’t want to be at their mercy - you want to be able to update and make changes immediately when you need them done.

Create a List and Market to It

When you have a business, you need customers to survive. That’s a no-brainer. But how do you find prospects - people interested in your product - and turn them into buyers?

For a startup, small-scale online business, it’s best to seek out your target market, ask for their email, and then market to that list.

You add email addresses through a variety of methods. The cheapest - but most time-consuming method - is to slowly but surely add valuable content about your niche to your website and/or blog. This will attract the attention of search engines like Google. These search engine optimisation efforts will pay off in increasing traffic to your website by those people searching for information on your topic. A percentage of those people will sign up for your list. That’s why it’s best to have a sign-up box, usually asking for a first name and email address, prominently on your homepage.

You can also build your list through social media like Facebook, paid advertising(banner ads, insert ads, or pay-per-click ads), and more.

Once you have your list, you have to start marketing. But it’s not about sending sales offers day after day. People will soon unsubscribe or even report you as spam.

It’s important to pass on valuable information to your prospects as well. Give them plenty of freebies - tips and tricks in your niche. This makes them know, like, and trust you. You could “warm them up” with valuable content in a newsletter, for example. You could also do so in your blog, ebooks, special reports, Facebook posts, videos, and audios.

Of course, while you may be a nice person, you’re not in this to simply be a humanitarian. You want to make money too. So you also have to send sales offers. Again, you have to have finesse here.

You can’t just send them an order form. You have to show them the benefits of the product. You have to paint a picture (figuratively) that shows them how their life will be better if they use your product. You have to provide proof that it works. And finally, you have to give them a push to buy the product - a special offer they can’t refuse.

People are naturally resistant to buying something new. You have to create excitement… desire… for your product.

You do that with effective sales copy. It’s the art of using words to tap into consumer psychology. And you must use these principles in just about every communication with customers, whether it’s on your website, your email, your social media posts, or your paid ads.

If you plan to write your own copy it’s important to study copywriting and marketing techniques, concentrating on direct-response marketing. And there is a ton of free information out there from groups like American Writers and Artists Inc. and Copyblogger.com. You can also hire copywriters through sites like Upwork.com

Of course, even if you do hire a copywriter, it’s best to know copywriting yourself at some level for quality control.

Putting It All Together

This has been a crash course in starting your own online business from scratch. It may seem like an intimidating process. It doesn’t have to be.

This will take some time and effort. You’ll have to make some tough choices along the way. But the trick is to do a little bit each day - that way you don’t get overwhelmed. Take it one step at a time and spend at least an hour each day working on something. But be sure to go in order. Find your market, then your product or products… then build your site and start marketing.

Just keep continually working toward your goal of having a profitable online business… and you’ll get there. This is not a race. You want to build a solid foundation for a business that will last and bring in income for years to come.

Once you've gotten your online business started, the next step will be driving massive amounts of traffic to your new website.

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Internet Marketing 101

What is Internet Marketing?

Depending on whom you ask, the term Internet marketing can mean a variety of things. At one time, Internet marketing consisted mostly of having a website or placing banner ads on other websites. On the other end of the spectrum, there are loads of companies telling you that you can make a fortune overnight on the Internet and who try to sell you some form of "Internet marketing program".

Today, Internet marketing, or online marketing, is evolving into a broader mix of components a company can use as a means of increasing sales - even if your business is done completely online, partly online, or completely offline. The decision to use Internet marketing as part of a company's overall marketing strategy is strictly up to the company of course, but as a rule, Internet marketing is becoming an increasingly important part of nearly every company's marketing mix. For some online businesses, it is the only form of marketing being practiced.

Internet Marketing Objectives
Essentially, Internet marketing is using the Internet to do one or more of the following:

• Communicate a company's message about itself, its products, or its services online.
• Conduct research as to the nature (demographics, preferences, and needs) of existing and potential customers.
• Sell goods, services, or advertising space over the Internet.

Internet Marketing Components
Components of Internet marketing (or online marketing) may include:

• Setting up a website , consisting of text, images and possibly audio and video elements used to convey the company's message online, to inform existing and potential customers of the features and benefits of the company's products and/or services. The website may or may not include the ability to capture leads from potential customers or directly sell a product or service online. Websites can be the Internet equivalents of offline brochures or mail order catalogs and they are a great way to establish your business identity.

• Search Engine Marketing (SEM), which is marketing a website online via search engines, either by improving the site's natural (organic) ranking through search engine optimisation (SEO), buying pay-per-click (PPC) ads or purchasing pay-for-inclusion (PFI) listings in website directories, which are similar to offline yellow page listings.
• Email marketing, which is a method of distributing information about a product or service or for soliciting feedback from customers about a product or service through Email. Email addresses of customers and prospective customers may be collected or purchased. Various methods are used, such as the regular distribution of newsletters or mass mailing of offers related to the company's product or services. Email marketing is essentially the online equivalent of direct mail marketing.
• Banner advertising, which is the placement of ads on a website for a fee. The offline equivalent of this form of online marketing would be traditional ads in newspapers or magazines.
• Online press releases, which involve placing a newsworthy story about a company, its website, its people, and/or its products/services with on online wire service.
• Blog marketing, which is the act of posting comments, expressing opinions or making announcements in a discussion forum and can be accomplished either by hosting your own blog or by posting comments and/or URLs in other blogs related to your product or service online.

• , which involves writing articles related to your business and having them published online on syndicated article sites. These articles then have a tendency to spread around the Internet since the article services permit re-publication provided that all of the links in the article are maintained. Article marketing can result in a traffic boost for your website, and the distribution of syndicated articles can promote your brand to a wide audience.
• , which can involve social networks like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and social bookmarking sites like Digg.

Internet Marketing and Home Business

Of all of the components of Internet marketing, prospective customers and clients expect a business to have a website.

In fact, not having one could raise a red flag to a prospect. Online usage has become so pervasive today, many prospects might easily choose to do business with a company that they can get up-to-date information on 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.

Even a business that only has very local customers, such as a single location restaurant or shoe store can benefit from having a website and engaging in online marketing. And, those businesses whose customers are not restricted to a geographical area might have a difficult time finding an alternate method of attracting customers that offers a reasonably low expense and worldwide reach of a Web presence.

Because of the "virtual" nature of most home businesses, websites, if not an absolute necessity, can certainly provide benefits to a home business operator. Since most home-based businesses don't have a physical location, a website provides an inexpensive means for prospects to get to know what you do or what you sell and can even be a "storefront" for selling goods and services directly.

The Internet has greatly enabled home businesses to prosper because of the reasonably low cost to start and maintain a web presence. Therefore, Internet marketing should be part of your business plan and your marketing strategy.

Finding the Right Internet Marketing Mix

How much of your marketing strategy should be handled online, which Internet marketing elements you use, and the importance you should give to your website depends on the nature of your business, your budget, and, to some extent, your personal traits? All of these considerations are part of strategic Internet marketing decisions that help develop Internet marketing strategies for a business.

Using Offline Elements with Internet Marketing Strategies

Unless you transact business only online, for example, if you are an eBay reseller, you will probably want to include some traditional offline marketing elements in your overall marketing strategy in addition to the elements in your Internet strategy in your marketing mix. Even those who conduct business only online might consider placing traditional ads in newspapers or magazines to bring prospects to their website to transact business online. Perfect examples of including offline elements as part of Internet marketing strategies are Expedia, Travelocity, and Monster.com. While they are online businesses, they invest heavily in traditional advertising, including radio and TV advertising, to draw traffic to their sites where the actual business is conducted.

Develop Internet Marketing Strategies You Like

If you have a personal distaste for "spam", which most of us do, you may not want to include email marketing in your strategic Internet marketing plan. However, email marketing doesn't have to mean just sending out unsolicited messages to every email address you can gather. If you include a visitor registration form on your website, for example, or if you exhibit at trade shows, you have the vehicles needed to collect email addresses of interested prospects. You might consider creating a newsletter and sending it to these prospects on a regular basis as part of your strategic Internet marketing plan. Or, you might just set up a schedule where you periodically send an email to your interested prospects to see how they're doing, if you can be of assistance to them, or if their needs have changed since you last talked. So even if you don't incorporate email marketing into your Internet marketing strategy, per se, you are still using email as a tool to promote your business.

Your Budget and Your Internet Marketing Strategy

Of course, your budget will also determine the components you use in any of the Internet marketing strategies you might develop. A website will require you to choose a domain name and register it and to purchase web hosting services from your website. Both items are deeply discounted, in fact, I recently saw an offer for domain name registration for only $1.99 per year - provided you also purchase other services, like hosting, which is now also available for less than $10 per month.

Once that's done, you'll need a design and content for your website, which you'll either need to provide yourself or pay to have a web content professional and/or web designer handle it for you.

Once your content and design are in place, you'll want your site to be found, so you'll want to learn about search engine optimisation (SEO), which is an important part of strategic Internet marketing, whether you do it yourself of pay someone else to do it for you.

Ideally, if you pay to have web content written for you, that content should be optimised for search engines when it's written. Likewise, you or your web designer should know something about SEO because how your site is designed can enhance or limit your site traffic, and in the vast majority of cases, SEO should be a significant part of your Internet marketing strategy. In both cases, you may pay a bit more, but you'll save time in the long run.

Once your website is up and running, you'll either need to maintain it yourself or outsource the duties to an independent Webmaster to do it for you.

Pay-per-click advertising (PPC), like Google AdWords, can be easy on your budget because you can specify how much you're willing to pay when someone clicks your ad and how much you're willing to pay per day. You can also specify whether you want to include your ad only on search pages or on other websites related to your keywords. You can set geographic and time of the day restrictions on when and where your ads run. Plus, PPC ads are fairly easy to activate and suspend whenever you need to do so, they're easy to update and they provide near real-time tracking benefits you won't get with most other elements in your Internet marketing strategy. You can also use images and/or videos with PPC advertising, which may be more cost effective than placing banner ads on other websites.

On the other side of the coin, you can use pay per click ads to make money with your website, through programs like Google AdSense, Yahoo Publisher or Microsoft AdCenter.

Tracking the Results of Internet Marketing Strategies

Let's face it: the average home business operator is not awash in cash. If you're going to be spending money on strategic Internet marketing initiatives, you'll need to track how effective they are. As you do so, you'll discover which Internet marketing strategies work for your business and which do not. And, you can learn from the mistakes you make in your Internet advertising campaign to improve your skills and enhance your success. Knowing what's worth spending money on and what isn't is very helpful in developing Internet marketing strategies as your business matures.

Strategic Internet Marketing Needs to be Flexible

Keep in mind, in most cases, patience is a true virtue when it comes to tracking the success of a strategic Internet marketing campaign. Search engines aren't likely to find you overnight and your strategies may not generate revenues right away.

Because you'll have literally millions of competitors who are also engaging in strategic Internet marketing, it will behoove you to keep on your toes and be ready to make necessary adjustments in your Internet marketing strategies when appropriate. However, some knowledge, some capable assistance, and a well-managed strategic Internet marketing plan can increase your chances for success.

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