Ancient Codes

By Steve Weber

 In the past several years my wife and I have created numerous and successful online businesses. I also have much experience helping beginners get off the ground with their own online businesses.

I first want to first discuss what beginners to an online home business should avoid. Basically, if an offer promises bank loads of money with only a few hours of work per week, it’s a scam. If the offer shows you plenty of pictures of fancy cars, vacation places, and even pretty women, it’s a scam. But most importantly, anything that sounds too good to be true usually means it is.

Also, if the offer says something about giving you your own affiliate website, that’s another area to stay away from. If the offer tells you that you get your own online store, that process won’t work either. There are no shortcuts to building a profitable online home business. Again, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

There are no “turnkey” systems you can buy for this process. There are no secrets you can “discover.” There’s nothing you can purchase that’s going to give you a very quick and easy online income. An online home business IS a business and requires treating it like one.

The correct ways to build an online business are these:

1. First, you must have an idea. You must have some original idea and/or product …or some unique twist on an existing idea. But most importantly, before you even begin you must know how to do the proper research in order to determine if the idea has a chance of success.

Oftentimes, beginners start a project with an idea that has no possible chance of succeeding. Beginners must be able to determine if the idea is viable before they put any work or money into an attempt for building an online business at home. Doing otherwise is a lot like shooting arrows into the dark - maybe you’ll hit something - probably you won’t.

2. You must have a website. Beginners, for some reason, believe they can get into Internet marketing without a website. That simply isn’t true. 99%, or higher, of all people who are having success on the Internet now days have their own websites. I’m not talking about the free sites available. Purchasing your own domain and your own hosting account are basic requirements for online success.

3. Before you even begin the project, you must have in mind how you will drive traffic to your site…and there are various ways to do that. You can use SEO, you can use tools like Twitter and Facebook or maybe you can use AdWords advertising. There are numerous ways to do drive traffic. Before you begin, you must have a traffic generation strategy in mind.

Far too many beginners drop the ball in this area. Internet marketing and an online business are not “build it and they will come.” For success, it is important to understand these basic principles for building a home online business in the beginning.

Visit Steve’s Classroom for tips, tricks and advice for building a home Internet business from scratch.

Ten Strong List Building Techniques

By suegold

 The lifeblood of any Internet marketer is their list. If you have an opt in email list then you are sitting on piles of cash, if you properly use your list then your earning potential is very high.

As many people ask “How do I build a list?” the following points describes some of the best ways for building your email list.

1) Newsletter / E-zine

We are in the Information Age and so people are desperate for information. Everyone is so busy with their lives they don’t have time to find the information for themselves. Publish a newsletter in your niche that is full of valuable content and you will get people flocking to you to sign up.

2) E-Courses

People are hungry for information, so a free e-course will persuade people to part with their email address. Create at least a seven part course that is delivered every few days into their inbox. Of course, the e-course also subtly sells your product!

3) Articles

Write articles and distribute them to article directories. Include your newsletter sign up in the resource box and if you have provided good quality content, you will get the visitors who will sign up to learn more.

4) Free Books

A free e-book is an excellent way to build your list. It doesn’t have to be an epic tome, just valuable information that people will exchange their email address for. You can write one yourself or get one ghostwritten for you. Make sure though that it is information that your visitors will want to have, and make sure you have included links to your products and sites in the book. You can also include affiliate links to further maximise your earnings.

5) Free Membership Site

Creating a free membership site is an excellent way to get people’s email addresses. Offer valuable content for free but only to signed up members. You can then upsell them other products or other levels of membership with more products and more resources available to them.

6) Squeeze Page

A squeeze page is a pre-sales letter page where you capture a person’s email address before they move on to view your sales letter. This is reportedly very effective and you can also personalise the sales letter with their name or other details from the squeeze page.

7) Pop Up

Pop up windows, particularly unique and different windows, can be very effective at persuading people to sign up for your newsletter. These can either pop up as the visitor enters your site, or when they leave, reminding them to sign up for more information.

Viral Marketing

Viral marketing is where you give away something of value that people want to pass to all their friends. It may be a video, a book, a game or anything similar. However, whatever it is, it has your web address in it so people can come and sign up to your newsletter and get more info.

9) Free Giveaways

A very popular new method of list building are the big Internet giveaways where lots of people submit products that are available for free in exchange for a newsletter sign up. These are excellent ways to rapidly build your list though be aware that freebie seekers may not make for the most responsive of lists.

10) Sign up bonuses

Offer your visitors a bonus if they sign up for your newsletter, e.g. “20% off XYZ for readers” or a number of e-books or reports that will be of interest to them.

Using these ten simple strategies you can build your list and then leverage their earning power.

Author J. Williams manages the {{{internet marketing resourcesinternet marketing toolsinternet marketing tools and resourcesinternet marketing resources and tools website were he is offering marketing strategies and tools that would help everyone to become successful with internet marketing. Visit now at http://www.marketinginternetcenter.com to learn more.

The Top Strategies To Help Grow Your Business To The Next Level

business growth strategies

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.