There are many misconceptions about making money online floating around the Internet. The one I most encounter is that it is easy to earn an income with little or no effort. There are, unfortunately, many sites that claim that a turnkey Internet business can be bought from just about anywhere and starting creating free cash flow in a matter of days. This is simply not the case.

If you step back and think about it you will realize that these turnkey Internet business claims simply can’t be true. If they were, then everyone would have a few hundred Internet businesses running at any given time. If you dig a little deeper you will see that the competition in online businesses is quite steep. This is because of the low barriers to entry.

That being said, there are some pointers for those who really want to have an online venture. My first is leverage the turnkey Internet business tools that do really help you make money faster. The two areas I see where this is easiest are: Launching your website and legal support.

In both the website development process and legal paperwork filing, you can use turnkey business tools to help your Internet venture launch faster. This is because there are many reputable sites that support newcomers with their knowledge and tools. They have been through the Internet business cycle before and can speed the process by helping you avoid mistakes. They also know a bit about what works and what doesn’t.

Turnkey website providers help you launch an attractive site in a fraction of the time it would take to build one from scratch. They have attractive templates for you to chose from and are generally bug-free. Likewise, those who offer turnkey business legal filing will expedite the paperwork needed to be appropriately licensed and registered to do business online.

These are two areas where turnkey business support can really benefit you. For all the rest, you need to remember that business is competitive and you need to work hard, be smart, and stay focused if you want to make it fly.

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Are you new to the online business world? There’s a lot to learn, not only about doing business to make money online, but also about the art of communicating with your customers when you can’t see them. Online communication most often depends on email, which means that your email habits are very important. An email to a customer is more than just a quick note. It’s a representation of your business. You should take some extra time to make sure it represents you well.

Here are some things you’ll want to remember when communicating with your customers by email.

Respond to every single email as soon as you can. And don’t respond just to say that you did. You’ll need to make sure that your response is as substantive as it can be. If you don’t have the complete answer (perhaps you need to do some research or await a response from someone else) then answer as much as you can and explain when an answer is incomplete. Customers like to know that they’ve been heard, and often accept that you sometimes need more time to get them a thorough answer.

Don’t forget to spell check. When you’re just starting out you need every single customer you can get. You don’t want to lose any because of an embarrassing spelling error. That said, don’t use the spell check as a crutch. Remember that it only checks spelling. Some correctly spelled words can be inappropriate for the message you want to send. Don’t be like the guy in Texas who offered an event in a “public place,” but forgot to put the “L” in “public.”

When you fill in the subject box, make sure you give your customer a clue as to why you’re contacting them. Email boxes are already deluged with spam emails, and your treasured customer certainly doesn’t want any more. Beat spam by putting something specific to their inquiry in the subject line. “A response to your question about cell phones,” is a good example.

You’ll also want to have your contact information listed under your signature. Include your title, fax number, and web contact information. Make your customers feel like you will be easy to reach if they have any further questions.

When you’re typing an email (or anything online) using all capital letters is seen as the equivalent of yelling. DON’T DO IT! Instead, capitalize words according to good grammar…like you normally do.

Following these simple guidelines will be a good way step towards having positive communication with your customers which will potentially lead to sales for your business and ensure your long term growth of your online business.

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Many blogs make money from advertising.  In fact, Google’s Adsense program, which is its content platform for Adwords advertisers, is one of the biggest reasons for the immense rise of blogs.

However, not all blogs lend themselves well to advertising.  In fact, back when I was a heavy user of the content network for my PPC campaigns, I was blocking my ads from appearing across many blogs for their immense failure to bring in any kind of conversion.  While I haven’t taken that route, I would assume that advertisers who do media buys have similar metrics from which they base the decision on whether to have their ads appear on certain blogs or not.

What kinds of blog gets an immediate thumbs down?  While it’s impossible to say 100%, I would assume these ones rank pretty high on the list of those where advertisers turn up their noses:

1. Blogs with no clear niche.

A lot of blogs - especially those whose domain is the name of the author  - are just plain too scattered in their subject matter, covering tech, food, friends and whatever catches their ADD fancy.  Product review blogs, left unwatched, tend to fall into a similar pattern too.

2. Lifestyle blogs.

While these blogs have a niche, they’re often too poorly defined and attract too varied of an audience to make advertising worthwhile.

3. Technical blogs.

Usually intelligent with plenty of poignant discussions, they’re rarely the platform for selling goods or building a brand.  In fact, most people on these types of sites have their ad-blockers on!

4. Cluttered layouts.

If I want my ad noticed, I don’t want it amidst a ton of affiliate placements and twenty other banners.  More than a few greedy webmasters end up falling victim to this mistake - don’t be one of them.

Hope this helps,

-Brett

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The up sell is one of the most important things every marketer needs to learn. While selling a product - an ebook, online course or an Mp3 download, for instance - is great, the real money is in identifying those customers who are willing to spend even more.

A classic example of up selling are the get-rich ebooks that sell for cheap (say, $15) then up sell you with five other ebooks (at $40 a pop) as soon as you purchase, each of which “holds the real secret to untold online riches”. With the right customer, that can prove a veritable goldmine, easing them into the sales process (via the cheap product) while hooking them later on.

Up selling, of course, is rarely as easy as putting the next product in front of your customer. In fact, I’d venture that turns most people off. Sneaky up sellers actually implement their marketing more subtly, giving the customer time to naturally develop a desire for the next step of the sale.

Instead of up selling by inundating the customer during the first sale, many smart marketers are creating exclusive forums, newsletters and blogs especially for first-time customers. Just as naturally as the customer evolved into a buyer of the beginner product, these resources can help convert them into a next-level buyer the more time they spend consuming it.

Some products go as far as to have different levels of up sell. Double Your Dating, possibly the most successful dating product online, starts you off with a $19 ebook and nothing else. In fact, until you buy the book, you probably won’t even realize they have other products on sale. Once you get the ebook, though, you are added to a different mailing list with access to resources designed to sell you one of their recorded CD programs. If you get that, you are then slotted to receive another set of resources which tries to sell you a subscription to a monthly interview series. The further you buy into their product set, the more products you end up discovering they have - seminars, in-field workshops, videos and more.

There is an art to the up sell and it takes finesse and a lot of planning to execute. Why burden your customers to an up sell right at the first point of sale unless you’re trying to piss them off?

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Using Blogs To Get Organic Links Into Your Commercial Site

With Google coming down on paid posting and every other jealous half-assed SEO consultant trying to dig up dirt to take your ranking sites a peg down, getting links for commercial sites is getting harder than ever. I mean, what kind of links are you supposed to get from a site that sells house cleaning supplies other than those you paid for to advertise your business? No matter how pretty your websites are, bloggers and other users in the social sphere of the web just aren’t going to be inclined to drop you a link with a qualified anchor text.

So how the hell do you get links pointing at you?

The traditional way of getting your word out, without explicitly buying links, can be accomplished via the web’s timeless advertising sources: high quality directories, press releases and paying forum posters to create a small buzz among related message boards. You’re still paying for links but, on these platforms, there is an easy, built-in plausible excuse.

Blogs are great for reaching out to social sites and as a platform for controversial content. For blogs that you build out as a part of your commercial site’s domain, you can treat it as a platform for weighing in on current events or for featuring items that are related your site’s main topic. If you’re in an even moderately commercial niche, you can use the blog as a platform for linkbait.

Offsite blogs designed for linkbait are an equally popular technique for social linkbuilding. You can go about it two ways. First, is to use the linkbait blog to garner tons of links and pass on some of that value to your commercial site by squeezing it into well-juiced pages.  Second, is to use the site to build keyword links and, at a later time, 301 all the pages to your commercial site.  Both can be a little seedy - still it undeniably works.

Another recent trend is to create offsite employee blogs. While the employees of your TV repair company or mattress store probably wouldn’t be so inclined to blog, you can always hire a writer to pretend to be one. These won’t create much high-value links, but they will look natural and are, generally, above question.

Regards,

Brett

ps. if you need help getting your online business started then I highly recommend this wealthy affiliate review, I have been a member of wealthy affiliate for over a year now and have learned all of my internet marketing knowledge from here.

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Starting Small, Making Plenty

One strategy I’ve loved from the first time I started working online has been the existence of small projects you can undertake to make small profits that you can then easily scale into similar ventures.  Not all bloggers can be the next Steve Pavlina, after all, nor can every affiliate marketer be the next Shoemoney.

For most people making bank on the web, the secret is to find small ways to eke out a profit, identify the path that got them there and do the same with other ventures.  While the money is small, multiply that amount by 10 or 15 similar projects and you can be looking at the start of a burgeoning empire.

PPC

I love using PPC as an example for this because the results are immediate, allowing you to find something that works then implement the same strategy into five or six other campaigns within the next few days.  For example, you discover that using surveys is a viable way of pushing sign-ups for zip submits and similar free offers.

You set up one campaign, tweak it to profitability within two days and then leave it to its own.  You can then immediately turn around, find a similar offer and use the same technique (survey + PPC) to promote it.  When you do, chances are good that you’ll see rather similar numbers.

Blogging

Say you start a blog today and, within 4 weeks, are able to increase readership and harvest a modicum of backlinks using techniques you picked up along the way.  Let’s say that your small blog is now in a position to  earn $1 a day.  Most people will try to grow the blog even more, exploring social media and other avenues of promotion.

However, an equally valid way of earning money is to start 20 new blogs then do the exact same techniques you used to build up your reader base and backlinks.  If all goes well, you can be up to $20 a day or more within another 4 weeks or so.

Small Profits

When you go about your online business this way, the trick is to always be building your empire using the same tried and tested techniques that net you your first whiff of profit.  Will this make you rich?  Probably not.  What it will likely do is help you start your online empire with a steady and varied source of income.  After all, having that solid base of profits is what usually gives you the freedom to explore riskier ways of business which can pay off with bigger dividends in the future.

-Brett

ps.  If you need help getting started check out Wealthy Affiliate University, I just finished a free membership website where you will get a wealthy affiliate tour in video form.

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“Start a blog, bring in readers and make the cash.”

That’s pretty much the formula that “How To Make Money From Blogs” tutorials have been pushing to starry-eyed newbies looking to take their piece of the internet pie. While it is valid, it’s also the easiest path to failure.

Of the millions of blogs that have been started, I’m willing to bet more than half have now atrophied into limbo. Starting a blog is easy but the rest of the work needed - from creating regular content to capturing readers to marketing to your audience - is back-breaking hard. Unless you have either the budget (to hire outside help) or the expertise (to do it yourself), your new blog will likely end up a labor of love turned neglected project within a few short months.

Affiliate Marketing

Most blogs now use layouts with dedicated spaces for various sizes of banner ads (25×25, 100×100, etc). If you find a product that you know will work for a particular site’s audience, you can easily buy an available spot, fill it with the advertiser’s creative and pass your affiliate id on the link. Tons of people have been doing this type of promotion and are raking monthly checks for it without ever having a website of their own.

Of course, nothing’s stopping the blog owners from stealing your idea and just promoting the affiliate product themselves. It’s a reality of the business and one that you can protect yourself from with some due restraint. Make sure to keep quiet when you discover a goldmine (especially when you’re talking with the guys who own the site) so people don’t try to co-opt your discovered treasure.

How PPC Can Help Your Site Grow

For the majority of internet marketers, PPC is a great way to sell products. You choose search keywords that are likely to bring customers to your landing page and pitch them all the way through the close. Unlike SEO, you don’t need to wait for links to mature and your rankings to reflect. With PPC, you can setup a new campaign and have it served to your target audience within the next few minutes.

As such, most people see it as the best way to put a product into potential customer’s line of sight. Since majority of marketers use it for that, it’s easy for newer webmasters to assume that’s direct marketing is solely what PPC is geared to serve.

What many don’t realize is that PPC is a completely valid vehicle for both establishing a new websites brand and growing its audience. In many cases, you can even use it as platform to indirectly build your site’s link profile.

Of course, PPC won’t be free. Yet, if you get your site in the hands of the right people, it can pay off in valuable dividends over a short time. If you have a new blog, for instance, PPC can be an ultra-fast way of letting people know about it. You can target your potential readers easily by advertising on search terms that they’ll likely be looking for on the search engines.

Even better, you can use PPC to target influencer’s in your industry. If you have an education resource, for example, you can target school professors who are looking for web sites to recommend to their students. Impress that one professor and you’re likely to have a steady stream of new student traffic typing your URL in their address bars. If you have built your site to be a concise resource for your industry, you can target writers who are researching for expert resources on your subject. At worst, you’ve had one new reader who will likely refer to you again in the future. At best, your site can get a mention, even a link, from wherever their article eventually gets published.

Never dismiss PPC as a vehicle for direct sales alone. Done right, it can prove a valuable asset for your site’s promotion.

-Brett

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How do you make money from a blog in 2009?

For the most part, it’s still the same as last year, although, some revenue streams are starting to look more attractive than others.

1. Direct Sales

More and more bloggers have been moving towards selling directly to their audience.  Whether it’s services or products, the more people that respect your voice, the better your chances of making a sale.

Of course, you know your audience best and, hopefully, have taken the time to understand what they’re looking to buy.  If your diet blog’s audience needs a brand new Diet Program or your web design blog has customers clamoring for site theme designs, you’re in the best position to sell it to them.

2. Contextual Ads

Adsense still seems to be the preferred advertising vehicle of choice for many blogs although that’s slowly changing.  With seemingly reduced payout rates and the increasing profitability of other income streams, 2009 may be the year we see a lot less “Ads by Google” plastered across blog posts.

3. Affiliate Marketing

If you’re not yet in a position to offer your own products and services, the next best thing is to recommend someone else’s.  A lot of the time, it’s actually smart to take the AM route before deciding to invest in your own products.  It gives you the chance to test the waters as to what your audience likes and, perhaps, make a little coin in the process.

4. Ad Sponsorships

Whether you source your advertisers directly or rely on a third-party provider, ad sponsorships can offer a very profitable income stream.  They are especially useful if you have an audience that you haven’t found an exact way to monetize yet.  Sponsors will also love interactive opportunities with your audience, whether it is via special discounts from your blog or contest prizes, all of which can net you extra income all the same.

5. Other Ways

There are many more ways to make money from your blogs, with each new ad network trying to come up with the next big thing.   Always be on the lookout for new income opportunities in 2009 because I have feeling there’ll be more to come.

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Too many people in this business try to take on too much too fast.

I’ve seen newbies go from zero to tackling the intricacies of a credit card site, ending up with nothing to show for it in the process. How the hell are you going to make a dent in an industry where the pros own every major property in a big way?

If you seriously want to make a go at building your own network of profitable sites, try focusing on niches that you can dominate on your current resources. How much do you have that you can invest for real? Zero dollars and a lot of time? $500? $10,000?

For those looking to invest nothing but time in the process, do you really think starting a weight loss blog or a payday loan resource will get you up to a profitable space? Even if you put in $1,000, you’ll probably be hard-pressed to make any serious impact. Look at the bottom rung of these types of blogs and content sites - they all have more articles than backlinks and, consequently, make nothing month in and month out.

“But there aren’t any niches small enough to dominate, should I just give up?”

If you think there aren’t, you’re right. If you think there are, you’re also right. There is always a new niche born every minute and that’s the reality in this business. They might be minutely small and not even profitable, but they exist.

New events, personalities and products crop up at breaking news sources daily - all of them relatively fresh, potentially useful niches you can dominate right now. For instance, American Idol is coming up. Each one of the contestants who walk through those audition halls can be a future superstar and this is your chance to gain the first foothold - a potential niche that you can embrace and rank for right this minute.

That same concept holds true for almost every breaking piece of current event you can find. At worst, you will have worked on a site that was only relevant for about two weeks. At best, you end up with a gold mine. For the price of a little time investment, it doesn’t sound all that bad to me.

Find a niche you can dominate…

-Brett

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Choosing the right keywords has long been a critical foundation for many successful web businesses.   Whether for SEO or PPC use, finding the keywords that your customers are likely to associate with your products and services are key to successfully connecting with your audience.  Unless you do it, you’re just wasting time - idling by as competitors carve their own niches in the marketplace.

Captain Obvious To The Rescue

Start with your obvious keywords.  If you’re selling insurance plans, the keywords “insurance” and “insurance plan” are as plain as it gets, along with anything else that immediately comes to mind.  Review any keywords you’ve written down and pile on any additional variations you can think of, including synonyms and conjunctions.

Your Visitors

Perhaps the most telling keyword sources will be your current crop of visitors.  Find out how they’re finding your site by looking at your site’s access logs.  Those terms are obviously bringing you traffic so put them down as well.

Competitors

Your direct competitors (especially successful ones) can tell you a lot about which keywords you should be angling for.  Take a look at their meta tags and write down any keywords you haven’t thought of that might seem useful.

Quite a few services can also help you identify keywords that your competitors are bidding on.  Sites like SpyFu and KeywordSpy all purport to do this, with varying levels of accuracy.  While they may prove off at times, it’s a great way to find potentially valuable terms, some of which may not have even crossed your mind.

Beg Your Friends

If you have friends who are experienced in the field, beg them (or brainstorm with them, if you prefer a less desperate term).  While that may hurt your pride somewhat, a morsel of an even just slightly profitable keyword can be enough to jumpstart your online endeavors - in fact, many have started their empires from just that.

Just Find It

Regardless of how you acquire them, it remains unquestionably crucial that you need to find keywords that will help make the online facets of your business grow.  Not short of begging, take whatever road you can to unearth new potential keyword gems.

And I got a little cheat… Micro Niche Finder

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