30Apr
Drive Traffic to Your Online Business

A friend of ours is wondering if she’s just dreaming, or if building online business traffic is a reality in her niche.
She’s been searching for another income stream to fill in the gap left when her 401K became a 201K. She has two e-books written and ready to go. She’s got a unique selling point (USP) and knows what she needs to do in order to launch a website and get it in gear.
But she’s hesitating. Why? She worries that so many other people have beat her to it. How can she possibly make a significant income online when big, established companies already supply what she has to offer?
She could have been me six years ago. I never believed that our e-books would sell at all, let alone pay the rent (or expand into a flourishing full-time business). I told her I’d had the same worries.
She wasn’t convinced.
“But that was six years ago,” she said. “Think how many businesses have popped up online since.”
This is so not a problem. If you’re worried, like our friend, about making money online, listen to why this is still a great time to create an online business.
First of all, half the people in the US don’t even have broadband. Many who do have access don’t use it. Yet. They will have it and they will be using it because it’s fast and efficient.
It’s tempting to judge the entire world’s behavior on what your friends are doing. However, when you’re cooking up an online business idea it’s important to step back and see the bigger picture. Keep in mind, it is the World Wide Web.
As more of our daily interactions go online, things such as banking, shopping, education, access to personal health care records, the Web will continue to grow. In other words, the train has not yet left the station. There’s still plenty of available seating and time to climb onboard.Building online business traffic is our buddy’s main concern. So I reminded her that due to an Internet principle called net neutrality, she does indeed have a fair shot at bringing traffic to her website. She knows that:
Traffic = people = business = success
And the same goes for you of course. No matter who you’re up against.
4 ways to build online business traffic:
1. Be the one they turn to.
Distinguish yourself and your company by responding to questions and emails quickly. Offer intelligent, personal replies and try to solve your customers’ problems. It’s easy to beat the competition, as many bigger companies don’t bother.
Recently, I had a problem with our Internet service company (Charter). I chatted online with a customer service agent. She answered questions that I wasn’t asking, and didn’t answer the ones that I was. I was passed to another agent when finally the first one admitted she lacked the authority to make the changes I wanted to my account. The conversation was frustrating and took over an hour. You can do way better than that.
2. Offer your secrets for free.
Transparency sells. When you give away your top secret info, a funny thing happens. Instead of losing customers, you build trust. Okay, you might lose a few. A small percent will take the free thing and never come back.
However, A large percent will appreciate what you have given them, Remember, this market is world wide. The idea is to give it away, give it away, (I’ve got a Red Hot Chili Pepper tune stuck in my head now), using parameters you’re comfortable with, such as a product sample, a limited-time membership, or a service they want and need.
These people will like you. A lot. They’ll even spread the word by sending tweet e-mail and chatting about the cool thing you do. All of which builds traffic to your online business. And definitely establishes you as occupying a notch higher and better (and nicer!) than the competition.
Building online business traffic means allowing your customers to get a taste of what you’ve got. So if you want people to buy your e-books or become a member of your website, pull back the curtain and invite them to check out what they’ll get.
3. Be easy to remember.
Your website, your online business, has a distinct persona made up of its title, its aesthetic appearance, and its USP. You choose these aspects for many reasons, perhaps not all of them even very consciously.
How do you think other people perceive your business’s online persona?
Consider what makes you remember someone you meet. Their style, their positive energy. What is that special thing that makes them stand apart from the rest of the herd? Offer something a little different than the competition.
Just as a good novelist or columnist does, know who your people are, your audience, and then write (or design) for them. Don’t attempt to appeal to everyone, because you can’t pull that off (unless maybe you’re offering free money with no strings! If you are — call me.);)
4. Offer the 3 Cs — Courtesy, Consistency, and Credibility.
Be courteous. Make it a core part of your mission to be nice to people. Not just people you think will become your customers, but everybody. Even the cranky, bitchy ones. Chances are, you won’t remember them but they will remember you. You wouldn’t want to get the type of mention I felt compelled to give Charter, would you?
Write standard responses that you can copy and paste and send out quickly. That way, when you’re having a difficult day, or you’re just too busy making money online to respond to your customers immediately, they won’t get the brunt of it.
Be consistent. Write a post a week, or three or five or whatever you’ve determined is a good rhythm for your web business.
Consistently deliver excellent service, a superb product, or valuable, reliable information. Show your appreciation for loyal customers who have paid for your service or product. Ask them how else you can help.
If you are working with a partner (as I am), be sure you check each other’s work occasionally, if not more often, to be certain you are portraying consistency with your customers. It’s perfectly fine to express your different styles, just make sure you don’t confuse your customers.
Be credible. Your reputation online is the backbone of your business. Make customers question your credibility, and risk destroying your hard work. The good news is, this is easy enough to do. Simply know yourself, know what your mission is, and use the other two Cs above to deliver it.
Building online business traffic is the biggest key to Internet entrepreneurial success. Without it, you have a nice website that nobody ever sees. Make the effort to bring traffic to see what you’re up to, and you’re in business.
27Apr
Make Me Money – Obstacles and Solutions

Most people, when asked, would love to make extra money at home, have multiple income streams and enjoy life to its fullest. Does this sound familiar? Maybe you want to give up working for someone else and sack your boss. When pushed you may actually realise that it’s not the making extra money but it’s the freedom it can give to you and those you care about. Freedom to enjoy all your wishes and dreams, sitting on a sun-soaked beach watching the magnificent blue ocean slowly rolling in and out, enjoying your children’s school play, taking part in their sports day’s or just going to the park while it’s still light outside.
Work from home businesses can give you all this and so much more, so why aren’t you doing it? Are you one of the potential work from home moms? Are you tired of being treated like a naughty school child from your supervisor or boss and want to give them the sack? Tired of the daily routine or the time it takes you to travel back and forth. Do you know someone who is self employed, they seem to spend most days at home or on holiday. You never really see them going to work. You want to have more energy in your free time, even the chance to join a gym and not feel ill at the thought of strenuous exercise.
It’s more than likely that you’re either not aware of how easy it can be, or you are faced with the major problem that comes to us all. Obstacles! Too busy. No money. Not sure what to do. You may get a number of ideas for business to get yourself a real work from home opportunity but you don’t know where to begin. Family and friends have put you off they tell you that it can’t be done. They tell you that there are no real work jobs from home and that you are better off with a nine-to-five job with security.
Obstacles face all of us from the moment we wake until the time we fall asleep, its how we deal with them that separates the winners and losers. Some people work around these challenges, put them to one side to do tomorrow or next week, hope someone else will do them for them. Or they just stop and do nothing about them and move on hoping they’ll succeed in something else. Winners face them square on, they want an income residual to better their lifestyles and give themselves a chance at any number of small business opportunities that are available.
So where can you go for inspiration so that you can begin to start making money from home for yourself?
There is a massive amount of resources for you to use, most are more accessible than you think. Look at the businesses around you or when you travel to work or take the kids to school. Check out your local and national newspapers. When you look you will suddenly find local magazines that you did not know were there. You will start to look more closely at the free papers and magazines that you receive in your letterbox. Look at the magazines in the doctors, hairdressers or even at your friend’s homes. Go to your local library and check out some of the huge amount of material they have. Don’t forget that you are just looking for any potential ways to earn extra money, do not be put off on how you will get your home business idea up and running. The uncertainty on how to get things done is something that you will get over later on. You will be surprised on how easy it is to overcome this type of obstacle.
There is obviously the one staring right back at you now, The Internet. There is a huge amount of people who work online from home. You can talk to someone free on the other side of the world, so there is definitely a stupendous amount of information and ideas for business here. So many people are making extra money which is sometimes an income residual to their full-time wage. Making money easy is not as readily available as some might hope but you may earn from home more than you have ever dreamed possible.
Type in anything, such as make me money and you will be amazed at the return of information that you will get. Just be ready for the amount that you get as this can become another obstacle. Keep going and look for small business opportunities, set-ups, courses to earn from home, gurus who will help you begin and hold your hand as you go through this exciting journey.
Working from home can be so rewarding for you and get you the things you dream of. Be that a better residual income, more freedom, a happier life or just a better you.
What you have to do to overcome those obstacles is to believe in yourself. There are certain aspects about yourself that you can change to become more successful. Do you have a number of ideas for business that you work on for a while and they just seem to disappear? One thing you can do is to use a technique of auto-suggestion. You may have heard this before. Take a picture of your dream home or car and look at it everyday. Write down your dreams and read them every morning and night to yourself. Always be thinking that you will succeed in your plans to become self dependent and tell your boss you’ll no longer want or need their services. It does work! Just believe that you can do it and a plan or future idea will come to you that will work.
Be persistent. If something does not work then look over it all again before consigning the idea to the trash. Many waste their time and effort jumping from one master plan to another. One of the best ways to make money from home can be in that idea that you just left, all because you see another amazing plan that promises you the world. Keep going at your current project until you have exhausted all avenues.
Have faith in what your plans can do and believe in them. This is where you will overcome the doubters around you. They may be family or friends or both. Give yourself a plan of action and follow it as closely as you can. Put some time aside every week to stay away from your plans so that you come back refreshed. Even if you all of a sudden get a lot of ideas for businesses, don’t get rushing back to work on it. Instead carry a small notebook or pad, write it down and come back to it when you go back to working on your own empire.
Probably the most important way for you to be successful is almost certainly in my eyes the most common reason, excuse, obstacle that causes people to stop. For some reason we gain all the knowledge, pay for ways for us to succeed and even buy the tools like auto-responders, HTML editors, web space and so on. We do not take action! Have you ever bought a course from an expert, got it home or received it in the post, opened it and had a good look? You decide that you will start tomorrow when you have more time. You may even take the wrapping off the first DVD and insert and watch the first twenty minutes or so. You get no further.
Your thoughts may drift away and you begin to have doubts about your purchase. The family, friends and people you do not really know also question your purchase. You ask if it will it make me money? Stop asking yourself this question. It won’t if you do not take action.
In closing then, my thoughts on how you can have a work from home based business include using many of the resources you have all around you, many being free. Don’t listen to the doubters that will surface if you announce your intentions. Use the technique of auto-suggestion, be persistent, have faith in yourself and make sure you take action. Click that link and follow through on that one project until you have succeeded.
26Apr
Is Becoming An Entrepreneur For You?

Anybody can start a business, but being a small business owner is not for everybody. Each year more than half a million new businesses are created. But the risk of failure is high, with a big number of those closing during the first 12 months and many more not making it past the first 5 years. Starting a business is, without a doubt, a risk, but in many cases it can be very much worth it. Is it worth it for you?

Can You Answer Yes To This?

Starting up a home based business is a good idea if you can sincerely answer yes to the next sentences:

You have conducted a feasibility study without letting your enthusiasm cloud your senses

Your business idea is clear on your mind

You have done market research

You are able to get your probable market share

You can live with little money for the next while your business is not profitable

You have planned other ways to boost your income until your first clients pay, or have enough saved up to pay the bills

You know your skills and shortcomings and how will they affect your new venture

You are independent and like organising your own work

The lack of financial stability doesn’t stress you out too much.

Does The Following Ring True

If you are establishing a business but can find yourself reflected on too many of the immediately following statements, reconsidering your plans may be a better idea.

You have absolutely no experience managing a business

You think your idea will be successful, but don’t have a solid business plan to prove it

You just left your job and want to prove to your family that you can be successful by yourself

You like busy office environments, under strong management

The idea of promoting yourself makes you uneasy.

You like knowing exactly how much money will be on your paycheck every month.

You really don’t have saved money and are not sure about how to finance your idea.

Starting a business is challenging. The first months will be unquestionably a bit of a test, both of your personality and your capabilities as a businessman. Sensible planning and a good business plan can be useful, but all things considered you may even need to be willing to quit or modify your strategy if your project is not giving the expected results.

If you are unconvinced about the negative aspects of establishing your company being rewarding enough, the best you can do is to control those risks as much as possible. Write a well thought business plan and try to estimate your company sales and costs for at least the next couple of years, search for people who can assist you with things such as sales if you aren’t good at them and put together a support network to aid you in making your business a great success even while you are learning.

You may possibly also consider partnering with somebody who has already been there. This could well help you avoid costly mistakes. Another option is requiring advice together with mentoring at your local chamber of commerce or business chamber. Being prepared for them is the best way of dealing with the risks involved in setting up a new business, and will give you peace of mind and tools to solve any problem that may come your way.
26Apr
What to Do With an Online Business Idea

The internet has opened up a lot of opportunities to earn a steady income. This is why more people are interested in starting their own web-based businesses today as compared to more than five years ago. But the big question is, how can you translate your online business idea into a success? You might be surprised that putting up your own business is much easier than before.
Perhaps the major obstacle from keeping other people from creating their own home based online business is their lack of knowledge on how to create and maintain a website. While the technical know-how of putting up a website may still be an advantage, it is becoming less so today. Because there are many options or services that can help anyone to quickly create a website and start doing business almost immediately.
So how do you go about with putting your great online business idea into good use? Here are a few steps that you can follow.
First is that you must know what niche market you want to concentrate on. Do you want to offer landscaping services only to homeowners? Do you want to offer car rental services only with a specific brand of car? There are many niches out there and often it is best that you first come up with a clear understanding of which niche do you want to master.
Second, create your own keyword list. For your website to be a success, it must rank fairly well in the search results. This is why you need to know which keywords are best to help you rank to the top. You will be using these keywords on your on page and off page optimization. The more targeted your keywords are, the better and more effective they can be.
Third, put only high quality content on your website. You need content that can attract the interest of most people because this is the best way that you can get clients or get the links that you need to rank better in the search results for your keywords.
The fourth thing that you can do is to first determine if there is enough market for the product or service that you are offering on your new website. Because even if you are offering the best product, if there is only a small market for it, you can only gain a small profit from it. Therefore it simply means that you must make sure there are enough possible customers to keep your business going.
The fifth thing that you can do is to continuously perform internet marketing or site promotion for your website. This is to ensure that you are expanding your reach to as many people as you can that you think might be interested in your business. Do not stop in marketing your site because you must always remember that you have your competition to think about. If you lie low on your internet marketing campaign, they might get a good chance in overtaking you either in the search results ranking or in getting new customers.
25Apr
Mothers Work From Home As a Caterer

Many mothers find it a lot of fun to cook for their family. A lot of mothers learn to perfect their cooking by entertaining as well. Mothers love to see their family enjoy the meals they have prepared. The highest praise you can get is for a child to say, “Mom, you should start a restaurant business.”
If you are interested in being a work at home mom in order to spend more time with your family, you need to determine how to use what skills you have. If everyone says you are a great cook, then maybe you should incorporate that skill into a home business.
Opening a restaurant may not be a home-based business but catering could be prepared in the home. Catering is a great business to get into. You could cook the food in your home and deliver it to customers using specialized equipment that retains the heat or cold of the food while you transport it to the location. You can use your family’s favorite recipes to create foods for your customers.
Some couples find that opening a catering business together is good. This can work out well for you if your husband agrees to take on the job of delivering the food. You may want to offer your services as servers of the food as well as catering. You may choose to provide the food and leave it to others to serve what you have provided.
A lot of people who enjoy entertaining would like to be able to take out frozen food and serve it in their homes. If you have good food to offer, your customers will keep coming back. This in turn will create healthy profits and larger opportunities.
You may want to try to reach customers who are having weddings and other big events. You will want to start off small. Don’t start off with a huge party when you are still getting your feet wet. When you cater to these types of affairs often times you will meet new customers. Over the long run this will expand your business and eventually you will be catering bigger events.
Work-at-home mothers with a catering business can involve their children in what they do. If you are making your family favorites but only in larger amounts, you can let your kids help you get ingredients together and make the food for your clients. As a result you will receive their help and you will have spent quality time with your loved ones. Creating unity and working towards a common goal.