Friday, June 7, 2013

Home Biz - finding markets, providing solutions and using the web

finding untapped markets

Should you look for untapped markets for your home business or instead go into a business area that is already making money?  There are upsides to both options.  Finding an untapped market might allow your business to get ahead of the competition and dominate the market.  Some business owners might choose to focus on an area that is already proven.  They know that there are customers ready to spend money in an area. 
 
providing affordable solutions

Pricing your products and services is a tricky subject.  Should you go for a low cost to get a customer or should you check other providers prices and price your products and services in a similar range?

Customers pay attention to prices.  Some companies might want to have low priced offers just to get new customers.  They might also have other higher priced offerings that they showcase later on down the line.  A business might want to position itself with higher prices to signal that its products and services have more value than lower priced competitor products. 

using the internet

Companies can market products in different ways.  Internet marketing is attractive for a lot of different reasons.  Low cost to get started is just one.  Websites and blogs can turn the sales process to the customers preference.

Generating leads using the web can be accomplished with setting up a sign up box.  Email newsletters and ezines are information sources that prospects might want to take advantage of.  

Companies can create free information as an incentive to get prospects to join the list.  

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Cheap Business Cards

You find all of these online deals for cheap business cards.  You decide to check them out.  

After entering all the information and getting everything setup, you finally get to the checkout page. That is when they get you.  You are expecting to get cheap business cards for a super low price, but they have another idea in mind.

The cheap business cards might have a high cost for shipping and handling.  It might also take a long time to get your business cards.  That really sucks.

You just want to get some good business cards at the price that they display, but you have to know deep down that it might be too good to be true.

So you are sitting at your computer, looking at the checkout screen and have to make a decision.  Are you going to spend the extra money?  This is the internet.  The great thing about the web is that the back button and the address bar are not out of reach.  

You start to wonder if it is better to use the internet for business cards or is it better to just get the business cards from a business that is located close by.  With the local business card printing company, you don't have to worry about shipping and handling.  

I am still looking for good cheap business cards.

Blogging - Add Content, Images, Videos and More

Create your own blog and start adding content to it.  Does it seem like blogging is hard to do?  Blogging is not hard at all.  You can write content for your blog on your own time and pleasure. 

Think about your online audience and what they want to hear about.  You have products and services to offer, but you might not want to do a hard sell immediately. 

A blog is a great way to share information.  You can post all kinds of info on a blog.  You don't have to just do a lot of writing on your blog.

Blogs are a great location to post photos and other types of information.  Some people are more visual and you don't want to ignore them.  Long blog posts might be perfect for turning into a video. 

You don't have to appear on camera for your videos. You can do screen capture or use photos to create a slideshow video.  Making visuals for your blog just gives it more appeal.

When you create new content for your blog, you might start getting some web traffic as a result. You don't want to ignore your web visitors.  How would you feel if you tried to talk to someone, but they just looked in your face and ignored you?  You want to respond to your blog readers.

How can you stay updated with your blog readers?  You can respond through the comments section.  You might come up with some really good blogging content and people start to respond.  They might tell you through the comments section just how good your new content is.  This is an opportunity to bring the conversation forward.  

Not all blog comments are real.  Sometimes you will find that some comments are being created just to try to get traffic to other blogs or sites.  This is called blog spam.  Nobody likes it, but you have to deal with it.  Most blog owners will just send those spam blog comments to the trash can.

Now you have some blog basics that you can use to get started.  Get your own blog started and start creating compelling information.  

How can you use cost per action on your sites?

Cost per action marketing sounds really complicated.  The simple way to think of it is getting money for getting people to do stuff.  That is pretty simple right.

Email addresses are just one way that you can earn money with cpa.  Companies want to get more leads.  Leads drive a companies business.  Leads might not buy something immediately, but they might continue to make offers in the future.  Email addresses are a simple piece of information.  People might have many different email accounts.  The only factor about email accounts is that people tend to check them on a regular basis.

Do you check your email everyday?  You probably do.  Getting people to give their email address for information on something that they want is found all over the internet.  With cpa, you might earn money for someone supplying their email address for an offer.

Cpa offers are different from regular affiliate marketing links that you might be use to.  Cpa offers might expire just like the milk in your fridge.  With cpa offers, you have to get them in front of the traffic fast.  There are lots of ways to market cpa offers, but you have to play by the rules.  If you don't play by the rules, and you get caught, you could lose your account.  You don't want that.

Come up with a plan for getting traffic to your cpa offers.  Some will use free marketing options and others will pay for the traffic.  If you have an email list, you want to check to see if the offer can be marketed that way.

Another way to promote a cpa offer is to use a domain name.  You might have seen a good domain name deal from a web hosting company like godaddy.  They sometimes have domains for super cheap prices.  This can be a good chance to snatch up a domain name and forward it to your cpa affiliate link.  Cpa affiliate links can be long and contain a lot of information.  Dressing up your cpa affiliate link with a nice and clean looking domain name is a great option.

Friday, March 8, 2013

Growing Your Internet Business

What are some of the reasons for wanting an internet business?  People have dreams of running their own company and becoming their own boss.  The idea of creating something from scratch and turning into something that can earn money is exciting.

The internet is the perfect place to offer services.  Not too long ago, it would be hard to do business outside of your regular lcoation.  Now with the web, it brings many people together.  The internet connects buyers and sellers from around the globe.

There are lots of different services that are in need.  In the past, it would take a lot of knowledge to create a website or a webpage for that matter.  Now there have been advancements that make creating websites and web development something that just about anybody can do.  The only thing that changes are the types of ways of earning money.  There was a lot of money made in the past with computer programming jobs.  There are still lots of people making money for these kinds of services, but they might be doing something a little bit different.

Websites can still be made with html code or with php, but more internet users have started using blogs to create sites.  There is a business in creating services for the blog platforms.  Wordpress is a popular blogging and content management system.  Programmers can create software for the wordpress platform.  Instead of creating a lot of standalone software, programmers might go where a lot of the action is. 

The internet makes it all worth while to start an internet based business.  There are a number of other reasons for using the web for business purposes.  The web makes it easy to do more now.  You can hold conversations using internet calling services like skype.  Low cost communications like cell phones and smartphones allow you to conduct business without a lot of the higher overhead. 

The web also makes it easier to outsource work.  You don't have to do everything yourself in business anymore.  You can find other service providers and get the tasks done that help you satisfy your online customer base.  

Your online business might be setting up websites.  You could create the content yourself or you could use freelance writers to get the job done.  Content is something that also has value and can be a business venture.  

We talked about blogs becoming really popular online.  They are easy to setup and just about anybody can start one.  One of the facts that comes into play is the need for content.  People are looking for good content and a blog is a good way to deliver the information.

If you know how to write good content, you are light years ahead of the game.  Content needs to flow online.  There are always new events that are happening and there are always going to be new people looking to learn new information.  One way that people choose to learn is to read information online.  If you can write good content, there is nothing that can stop you.

Blogs get started all the time and sometimes those blogs don't stay updated.   This is potentially where your writing skills can come into play.  There are lots of websites that offer affordable writing services and blog owners might consider taking a chance on other writers providing content for their sites.  

Content is important.  People are looking for information and they head over to the search engines to find what they are looking for.  Another internet business service that has potential is seo services.  Search engine optimization has some basic rules but some business owners might not understand all the technical details and they might not have the time to invest in learning it themselves.  They are interested in getting results.  All you have to do is bring up the topic of web traffic online and you will get lots of pages of information in return.  Search engine optimization comes with just about every website and it is important when it comes to creating content.

An internet business can have a low barrier of entry.  There are lots of different types of services that can be offered.  This is just the tip of the iceberg.  

Friday, December 21, 2012

Goal Setting for Your Home Business


Do you ever look up from your home business in December and wonder where the year has gone?  It is amazing how fast a year can go by.  Did you meet your home business goals for the year?  Setting up goals for your home business is a good idea.  Goals can help you focus on what is important and can help you eliminate or reduce the amount of time that you spend on less important things.

Home Business Goals - Where do you want to take your home business

Just like planning a long trip to a place that you have never been before, you want to have a destination that you want to reach.  If you don't have a clue about where you want to take your home business, it would be a good idea to think about it, right?  You don't have to spend a whole month coming up with your business goals, you can sit down and think about where you want to take your business.

Putting it down on paper

You can have a lot of different ideas about your home business that you want to implement.  Ideas can come into your mind and they can leave just as fast.  Have you ever thought about something but you didn't write it down and forgot it?  You don't want that to happen with your home business goals.  Make sure that you have a way to make a record of your goals.  It can be as simple as pulling out a piece of paper and a pen or as complex as buying business plan software.  The main key is to get your home business goals into a format that will not get away from you.  Print out your home business goals and put them in an area where you can see them on a regular basis.

Home Business Management

Management is a constant in all forms of business and your home business is no different.  Are you going to focus more on managing your home business?  Getting your business organized can help it run more smoothly.  When you are not organized, you can waste a lot of time trying to find information and trying to get things done.  When you are organized and prepared in your home business, it can help keep your business on track. One of the goals that many home business owners and business owners in general seek to accomplish is better management.

Growing Your Home Business

Do you want to grow your home business in the near future?  What do you want your home business to look like in the next three to five years?  It helps to start thinking about the future of your home business and what it will take to reach those goals.  Breaking down all the steps that are needed to get to the goal is an important step.  There are day to day items that need to get accomplished to reach a goal.  Building better habits and reaching those smaller goals can help you build momentum to reaching your ultimate business goals.

Putting in the right home business systems

Are there systems in place in your home business?  Trying to do things in a haphazard way might work in the short term for your home business but it might be better to start learning about systems that you can use to help your business run better.  One of your home business goals might be looking into newer technologies that can help your home business run better.  Sometimes a business might be doing things in a certain way but there are other business advancements.  Are there better more efficient ways of getting your business done.  Taking the time to investigate newer software systems and processes might have a real impact on your business performance.

Taking the time to sit down and take a look at the direction that your business is headed is a good idea.  How is the business landscape changing?   Are your customers changing?  Are new regulations going to have a big impact on your business prospects?  Goal setting can help give you an outlook on what is ahead for your home business.  Business planning might not be the cure all for your home business, but you are going into the marketplace with your eyes open to possibilities and pitfalls.