Traffic - Turnkey for the Success of Your Online Business

"Getting stuck in traffic doesn't have to a bad thing". Isn't it ironic that you try hard to avoid traffic in your daily life but when it comes on to online business it is exactly opposite that is what you spend a chunk of your money and time to figure out how to increase traffic to your site. Because getting a well designed web site without traffic is no good. But the real question is how do you drive more traffic to your site. You can increase traffic to your site without spending even a single penny. Are you wondering how it is possible? In this article, I have explained few free techniques through which you can drive more traffic to your site. Have a look at it.

• Upload Videos: We all know that YouTube is considered as number one video site that more than 100 million users are visiting daily. Uploading your business video is the best way to create awareness for your online business. This in turn increases the targeted traffic to your site.

• Publish blogs: Blogs are the best and most cost effective way to increase traffic to your site. You can publish your own content with back links so that you can expect someone will click the back link and visit your site. To get more effective results, you can publish your blogs to popular directories like EzineArticles.com, GoArticles.com etc.

• Newsletters: You can send newsletters to your existing customers or new customers to let them know about your new special offers, discounts and product launch etc. By this your brand may get wide exposure among the customers thus your site gets more traffic.

• Add interactive applications in your site: You can add some kind of interactive fun applications in your site so that visitors may come again and again. You can also use polling or predictions so that it may attract the customers and turn the visitors to customers.

• Social Media Marketing: Nowadays, from adult to teen, all of them are addicted to social media sites such as Face book, Twitter, etc. Make sure that your social media site should have back link to your web site. When someone likes your page, he/she may share your link to their friends thus your business get more exposure like wildfire.

These are few cost effective and easy tips to generate traffic to your site. Just try to incorporate this in your site and have profitable busy site.

How to Begin an Effective Home Business   

The Evolution of Internet Culture

The internet is rife with many facets of culture that crisscross international boundaries. Most people are restricted by physical movement, but the internet allows us all to interact in a platform that allows for seamless data transition and analysis. This is why culture change and creation is instantaneous and on going on the internet. Lets look at several ways internet culture has been embraced and what the future of internet looks like.

A young boy can make a video of himself doing something silly like singing badly to Britney Spears. A video like this can become part of internet culture if the masses of the internet decide to deem it worthy to promote and create parodies or remixes. If enough people see and promote the video, it becomes infectious and "viral" and it becomes popular enough and it becomes a part of internet culture, something people can share.

Cyberculture is what internet culture is about. It's created from the labyrinth of billions and billions of interactions with users who create something that becomes worthy enough to be promoted on it's own accord; such as an inside joke. Cyberculture is one culture. All of the internet share one culture and cyberculture is he manifestation of those shared phenomenon irrespective of people's backgrounds and ethinicities.

Facets of internet culture are generated in the form of internet phenomenon or "memes." They can start in the form of forum pages, pictures, texts and videos. These pieces of "memes" may be funny or relevant or ridiculous in different ways. Before video sites were created, these kinds of memes were formed in internet webforums, where one user will create something worthy of being promoted and other forum users will begin promoting these memes hoping it will catch on and be a hit with the internet general culture.

As years go on, sites dedicate to the formation of such cultural phenomenon such as social sites like Reddit, 4chan and Facebook made memes much easier to promote and generate memes. There are websites that allow of easier uploading videos and images such as Memegenerator and YouTube allow for people to create a new meme in seconds. This explosion of internet culture is where we are now.

In the future internet culture will possibly be utilized by companies in order to promote products. Some companies such as Old Spice have adopted the ridiculousness style of videos that go viral by creating content that is wildly ridiculous and silly in order to attract and obtain the loyal following the internet has to offer. Their advertisements show a man who seems alluring yet does and says often very ridiculous things. His surroundings settings change rapidly and he embraces them nonchalantly. In one video he is walking on sand and instantly he's on a horse and then he's magically in a house. All this is happening and he acts as though nothing is changing. Another company is Real California Milk. Real, they used a viral type of video to gain consumers to buy their Dairy products. Their video ads are zany and whimsical, often displacing contrasting and absurd dialog involving talking cows and conversations between fathers and their young daughters that are completely silly and unrealistic. This is the appeal of internet culture and the internet audience. Everyone wants to be entertained and these companies have done a good job doing this and also shamelessly plugging their products in the process.

The future of internet culture is going to involve an even faster creation of internet culture. Before long, a year of internet culture will be almost unrecognizable as a new year of culture nuances will replace it. It's going to be a cultural explosion and the whole world is invited to share and entertain each other.

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Marketing Your Business Locally Online

If you are like most small business owners you may not have presence on the internet for your business. While your local business may have a website (which is good, as over 50% of small business owners don't). It's good to have a website that at least is receiving some traffic from search engines which ultimately is bringing you in business.

While people still do use phone books, it's better to move more towards the internet age and make your business presence online. A small example is when my friends started their own local photography shop, they had the skills and equipment, however they did lack a website. I stepped in and help them create a website with some information and displaying some of their personal work.

The key obviously was to obtain rankings for keywords over the course of about a month. Competing locally for keywords is generally very easy compared to trying to market your business with a national keyword or something common like "Cars". For example maybe you have a flower shop located in Sprigville, you could most likely rank easy for "Springville Flower Shop".

Great, so far we have a website and have an idea of what we hope people will search. If not you can use keyword tools to see how popular queries are. With a new website it's best to stick to low competition keywords only, there is no sense it trying to compete for a keyword like Cars.

There are various ways to promote your business for free. The first method is YouTube. Create a small company commercial and upload it to YouTube using your keywords in the title, add a description and link to your website from YouTube. Videos are a great way to engage with users. If you are using YouTube you can make as many videos as you would like, perhaps showing tips about the services you provide. Just an example: if you are a local car dealership why not make a video sharing your knowledge on the mechanics of cars?

The next way to promote your business is Facebook. You can create a free fan page on Facebook and invite people to "like" or become a fan. The more people you have engaged basically creates a more broad advertising reach as you can post photographs, status updates and videos from YouTube and other sites to your page.

Those are my personal 2 favorite ways to promote a business online. You of course can engage users through other social media sites such as Twitter. The key is really to provide great content with useful information, if you are out online sharing information that people can use they will come to you. Search engines also like seeing a good flow of content produced on a regular basis. Rich content sites with videos, photographs, text that link to useful information tend to do very well in search engines, however your content should be unique, have a special twist or touch that many users can either A: relate to or B: engage with.

Promoting your online business doesn't happen over night, it doesn't matter what niche or field of category you are trying to advertise. You can use paid advertising methods as well such as Pay-Per-Click (PPC). PPC allows you to target directly what users are looking for, you don't actually pay anything unless they click. Most likely if they do click they are going to look at your website and potentially become a customer for your business. I myself have ran a lot of PPC campaigns in the past, some have been successful and others have not. It's really about testing the waters, spend only what you can afford and never more than what you are willing to lose.

My absolute personal favorite place to advertise is in the free classifieds section. Free classifieds sites are a great way to promote your business or service. Post in the right category of course. When people come along looking for your service they will most likely buy. You don't have to spend a lot of money to advertise, however it can take time. It basically utlimately comes down to time vs money. In conclusion after a period of time you will build a good customer base and increase your presence online so you can focus more on your business.

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Tips for a Better Internet Marketing Campaign

Marketing is an inalienable aspect of selling any product or service. While marketing has existed in some rudimentary form, ever since the dawn of production, the Industrial Revolution has taken marketing to a whole new horizon by multiplying production, and increasing competition. The importance of marketing can be gauged from the fact that even well established brands spend millions of Dollars every year on marketing. No matter how good a product is, unless it is properly marketed and consumers are aware of it, it may go down the drain of one of many failures.

The development of mass media in the mid twentieth century (Radio in the 30's and then Television in the 50's) provided producers all over the world a new platform to reach their consumers. Similarly, the revolution in Information and Communication Technologies (I.C.T.) in the 1990's has not only opened a new vista for marketing, but it has taken marketing to a whole new level, making it more interactive, and affordable. While some were quick to realize the limitless potential of the internet, others exhibited an interia to move into this field. Still, within a decade it was clear that ignoring internet will not be possible for anyone, no matter how big or small a brand is.

As Capitalism favors diversification, division, and specialization of every labor, within some years the field of Internet Marketing was taken over by professionals, and rightly so. Internet Marketing includes a host of services ranging from SEO (Search Engine Optimization), SMO (Social Media Optimization), Online Reputation Management, Content Writing Services, Media Planning, Google AdSense, Online Ad Campaigns, PPC (Pay Per Click), email Marketing, Mobile Advertisement and much more, each requiring special expertise. As most of the companies have neither time, nor the required resources and expertise in these marketing techniques, they outsource this work to companies specializing specifically in Internet Marketing. Though while assigning someone the job of Internet Marketing for your company, you must check some basics first. There are some firms that provide all the above mentioned services from SEO to email Marketing, as a package. Always choose such a firm as they can offer you a holistic approach for the whole marketing campaign. Assigning different tasks to different companies may temper the overall tone of your campaign.

It's always better to trust someone who has been around for a while, and is well versed in the rules of the game. Experience does matter in marketing. Trust someone having at least a decade of experience in the field, under their belt.

Checking client history is a time tested prescription. Go through the client history of the short listed companies. Check do they have some big brands to boost off as their clients. Also check do clients prefer a short or a long term association with them. If possible speak to some client, and ask their experience of working with that particular company.

Always post a query, or speak to someone in customer support staff before finalizing someone. It's always better to speak directly, explaining to them what exactly you want out of your marketing campaign, and then analyze how better their team understands your requirements.

Checking the company's local reputation may also be worthwhile. If you can find and speak to some of their local clients, then always avail this opportunity. Someone from the same locality can always tell you a thing or two, about their reputation, and work history.

Internet Marketing is an important component of your overall business strategy. It can make or break your brand image. It's crucial that you choose someone who can maintain and build upon your virtual brand image. If executed properly, you can reap windfall gains through successful Internet Marketing.

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Reasons Why Your Business May Need IT Outsourcing Services

So, you want to save on equipment and tools for your business! IT outsourcing services could be right for you. These days, most businesses cannot operate smoothly without the use of computer systems, wireless networks and online marketing.

There are many benefits that you can get when you have the management of your IT systems outsourced to a third party. If you are looking for answers as to why your business may need such service, read further to know what many people are citing as good reasons to do so.

Great Savings on Business Costs

One good reason is great savings. Purchasing state of the art equipment and tools necessary for IT systems can be very costly. The same holds true with hiring full-time employees for network administration, software development, infrastructure design or online marketing work.

E-mail Solutions

As your business grows, your internal messaging requirements can be more demanding. Instead of adapting costly internal messaging systems, you may wish to consider opting for e-mail hosting services. Among the benefits that you can get from such service include a secure POP and IMAP access.

Whether you wish to answer e-mails online or offline, Web hosting support could help you out. Make your e-mails more secure by opting for professional Web hosting services. With it, you can enjoy a huge storage space amount. Additionally, e-mail solutions can save you time sorting through your messages and determining which ones are junk or spam mails.

Hardware and Software Support

A number of IT outsourcing companies are offering hardware and software support. Normally, they handle network issues or software problems remotely. If they fail to fix the problem through remote means, they have their IT professionals delegated then for field work. IT consulting firms are there to offer you on-site support to address all your hardware and software problems.

No one knows when an IT system will suddenly fail. This is why it is imperative for any business to enlist the services of an outsourcing IT company that will take care of everything from cleaning to maintenance of a software system and repair of defective or failing hardware.

Server Maintenance

IT support firms can help you concentrate on the important aspects of your business especially if it is predominantly online. Nowadays, business transactions are being done online. If this is the case, you cannot let a server go down. Once a server fails to do what it is expected to, it could mean lost clients.

Although some customers can understand the occurrence of server failures, they would be less likely to consider your services if your server is down most of the time. It can be very helpful for business success to outsource to a reputable IT firm that can shoulder server support and maintenance. Such service must also address emergency system recovery and necessary software installations and upgrades.

IT outsourcing service providers can help avoid business problems from occurring. Many companies fail to take into account the importance of overall maintenance and precautionary measures because of the fact that they are busy with usual transactions that are going on in their business.

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5 Surefire Tips To Increase Your Traffic

Tired of being at the bottom of the search results? Worried you're ever going to make a penny off the internet?

Truth is, 99% of the people who try out internet marketing give up to soon. Not because it's impossible to reach a reasonable amount of traffic, but because they try the wrong methods. Here are some of the best tips that I've compiled. That will help you increase your traffic today.

1. Offer Original and Quality Content on Your Site. This is one of the most important things to consider when you are trying to seriously do well online.

If you are willing to put the effort in, then you will see results. Your efforts are reflected on your quality. Always offer original content that is useful to people. Over time your quality will be noticed and your page rank will increase.

2. Get quality backlinks Now, when I say "quality" I do mean it. If you spam your website's link all over the internet, in reality you're only going to hurt yourself.

Google automatically detects spammy links and red flags them immediately. When you are building backlinks you want to do them naturally and overtime. Try to always gain backlinks from websites that are highly respected. You will gain nothing if you build hundreds upon hundreds of backlinks if they are all spammy, low quality, and irrelevant.

3. Use social media Using social media is a great way to increase traffic. You want to stay connected with the community and contribute something.

Don't limit yourself to only Facebook or Twitter. There are a lot of other tools that can help you keep in touch with the community.

Remember that social media will expose you and you're content so it is always a good idea to get started as soon as possible.

4. Give freebies. Giving freebies is always a nice way of saying "Thank you" to your visitors. And often enough, they will come to your site for more.

If you are skilled enough, write an e-book with all your knowledge about a topic, and give it away to people that are subscribed to your newsletter.

If your freebie is of great value, it will most certainly increase your traffic massively.

5. Trading Links.

Remember to stay linked. If you can trade links with someone else you can potentially get many unique visitors which might become loyal.

High authority sites are the ones that really count, and remember that if someone within your niche has a good rank and they link to you. That alone could make your page website rank and in return you will get a crazy amount of traffic.

Speaking of crazy...

Even though following these tips will put you on the right track to start getting some real traffic, there is one huge mistake you want to avoid at all costs. A mistake so big that it could literally dictate whether your site will be ranked in the first page of Google, or the very last...

So if you do not want to fail like the other 99% are. Make sure you checkout the link in the resource box.

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Multi Level Marketing Compensation Plans - Lucrative Home Businesses

One of the most sought after resources of all online marketers and business owners is a constant supply of fresh new leads, to whom they can offer their product, service, or whatever else they choose.

You have to face the fact that all businesses need new leads, or they will simply not make sales.

When you become involved in any form of online marketing, be it MLM, direct sales, affiliate marketing, network marketing, or any other internet business, the importance of fresh leads cannot be ignored.

Traffic equates directly to income for any online business, and the only way to develop and grow sustainable businesses is to have a regular flow of consistent targeted website traffic.

If you want to start a new online business, you urgently need leads in order to start selling your products and services. It is important to bear in mind that you must work consistently as you try to get leads to opt-in to consider your offer, otherwise your results will more than likely be poor. You also have to be extremely patient in the process, as any new business takes some time to establish and start attracting any traffic.

I do know of a relatively new way to get free leads and promote your current business, and you can even start your own lead company at the same time.

There are many different ways to get leads for your business. You can work to increase traffic visiting your website, capture leads and then follow up through email marketing and autoresponder messages and newsletters.

Many business owners decide to invest in purchasing leads, thereby increasing their chances of converting leads to sales. Should you be considering purchasing leads, you should make sure that such leads will be pre qualified and are newly obtained by the provider.

Multi level marketing compensation plans do vary greatly in their small print, and even though you reckon you may have found the perfect compensation plan, you might find it linked to a company that you'd rather not promote. On the other hand, you may find an amazing compensation plan and have to promote products that don't appeal to you. Or maybe you'll find the opposite, in that the company and products are what you want to get involved with, but the compensation plan is not conducive to creating lucrative home businesses.

So what can you conclude from all this?

Well, you need to educate yourself as much as possible about MLM compensation plans, because you need to know exactly what you are getting involved with, and be able to recognise a good compensation plan when you see it.

How to Begin an Effective Home Business   

Online Business Opportunities - Make Money At Home On Your Computer?

Indeed, I always cringe when I see online business opportunities being offered because they all too often claim that they have discovered the secrets to success online. They will claim to business opportunity buyers that they can make money working out of their own home on the computer, and get money from the Internet by following simple strategies, usually these are strategies that anyone can learn if they buy a low-cost package to learn how to market their own business. Okay so let's talk shall we?

The reality is if someone is truly making millions of dollars online with some new marketing scheme, then they would be smart not to share it with anyone, especially for the low price of perhaps $39.95 - do you see that point?

Further, if they really do have a pretty good strategy going, and even if they aren't really making $1 million, but they are just lying in their advertising, even if it is a decent way to let's say make $10,000 online, and even if they have the records to prove they can at least hit that nominal number, then by the time they tell everyone else about it there will be too many people doing it therefore no one will make money. With the exception of the person who sold everyone this pipe dream for that low price of $39.95 - and that my friends is the reality.

There was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal on November 10, 2012 titled; "Sharing Is For Chumps" which stated; "Financial experts argue for a great variety of investment strategies, but these approaches all have one thing in common: Once the word is out about them, their returns shrink." The article goes on to say that their returns can shrink up to 35% as soon as the information is published in academic journals.

That particular article also cited a study; "Does Academic Research Destroy Stock Return Predictability?" by R. David McLean and Jeffrey Pontiff published in October on the Social Science Research Network.

Now then, I would submit to you that this same thing happens online when people go on the Internet and read the various forums, blogs, and free e-book marketing material put out by these online business opportunity offering entrepreneurs. Suffice it to say that you shouldn't be caught making the mistake that everyone else is in paying these people for their brilliant marketing campaign.

If it was really that great they wouldn't be telling you, and if they are, their marketing strategies have already run their course, or they aren't very good, and they will soon get worse as other people are all doing the same thing. Please consider all this and think on it.

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Utilizing a Traffic Generator To Increase Website Exposure

Probably the biggest challenge which most Internet business owners experience comes from trying to get visitors to their web location. Using a traffic generator to obtain those interested persons can cause more frustration to business owners than probably any other part of running an online business. Nevertheless, getting targeted guests to the site can be achieved through several different channels, including blogging, forums, search engines, social media marketing, providing fresh content through article marketing, through search engine optimization of the content on the site, Google AdWords, media buys, social bookmarking, social networking, video marketing, and ad swaps.

Guests end up at websites through many different channels. The very savvy webmasters will use special tools to encourage someone to stop by their site. They use tools such as YouTube, for video marketing. Others pay to use the Google AdWords system

Blogging started out as a means for friends share their stories with one another. However, blogging has become a viable form of making a steady income online. Today, thousands of income-generating blogs are on the web. Blogging is now recognized as one of the major successful web visitors producing apparatus, accessible to Internet business owners.

Other means of getting people to the website is by way of the major search engine, including Google, Bing, and Yahoo search engines. This kind of visitor is known as organic traffic, and it is free of cost to webmasters. He gets to the websites through searching for particular information by way of the search engines.

Web owners measure the success of their online market efforts by how many persons stop by their sites, and by how many sales have resulted from those visits. Consequently, webmasters consider getting targeted guests to their website as the number one priority in their market effort. Without sufficiently targeted people to the site, the Webmaster would have failed to reach his financial goal.

The use of social media marketing to generate huge amounts of people to an Internet income opportunity has exploded in recent years. Websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Stumble upon, YouTube and LinkedIn are the craze of online market to thousands of like-minded online surfers. Using any of those social media system could propel a new online web owner into being a millionaire, almost overnight

A decade ago, promotion by the use of article writing was considered the absolute best way of getting guests to a website. The saying was that content is king. Today, content marketing is still considered an effective and safe means of enticing visitors to a site. And content that is correctly search engine optimized could lead tens of thousands of visitors to a website.

Generating traffic to a website can be a very daunting task. The use of a traffic generator can prove extremely helpful to the success of all Internet owners. It is critical that webmasters find time to learn the different ways they could get buyers to their sites. Guiding buyers to a website will be the toughest task a web owner will deal with in his business venture. But no Internet venture undertaking can survive and succeed without buyers.

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Important Considerations for Websites for Insurance Agencies

The present conditions in the insurance industry have made it mandatory for agents to have websites. Although the job of an insurance agent depends on personal contact, websites have become necessary because people use the internet to find best policies and agents. In such a scenario, not having a website can be a serious liability. However, websites for insurance agencies need to conform to certain important considerations in order to increase impact on insurance seekers. Here are some of the major considerations.

What is the main focus of websites for insurance agencies?

When you seek a website for your insurance agency, there are three important questions that you should answer.

· What do visitors expect from the website?

· What should be the essentials that have to be included in the website?

· What should be done to ensure that visitors return to your website?

Tips to build insurance agency websites

When a visitor lands on your website, his main intention is to find an insurance company or a policy that fits into his requirements in terms of coverage as well as budget. In order to ensure that these expectations are fulfilled, the website needs to have certain characteristics.

· A simple website that is uncluttered and basic so that informative content is easily visible

· Well categorized pages in order to aid easy and quick navigation

· Easy to locate "contact me" icon because maximum visitors are bound to post queries

· Special offers provided by different insurance companies should be highlighted so as to catch attention instantly

· Avoid Flash programming because it increases loading time of the site. Moreover, for people who do not have access to high speed internet, slow loading sites become very unfavorable and you might lose out on a sizable chunk of target audience

· Responsive web design so that one website fits into various internet savvy devices such as smart phones, tablets and laptops. In case a responsive design is not possible, you should have mobile apps specially designed for your agency because internet usage on these smart devices in on a rapid increase

· Prominent "quotes" icon. Visitors will definitely want to request quotes when you show them some great offers. Applying for a quote should be easy and less time taking so that visitors are not put off

· A blog is essential so that you can connect with target customers on a more personal level. The job of insurance agents is based on personal contact, after all. A blog offers a lot more freedom for agents as well as visitors to express their concerns and suggestions. Customers can give feedback about your service on the blog

· Excellent multi-channel customer support system is extremely crucial

In addition to these aspects, it is extremely important for the websites for insurance agencies to be optimized for search engine indexing. SEO ensures that the website is found by search engine bots more frequently and ranking of the site improves gradually. As a result, visibility improves, you receive more visitors and can enjoy a higher conversion rate.

The importance of websites for insurance agencies cannot be emphasized in words alone because their necessity is so huge in magnitude. Only when you have a website can you realize the enormous benefits that it offers.

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Make Money From Home Online With These Three Key Concepts

Creating a successful internet marketing business to make money from home online is entirely possible for anyone willing to make a substantial commitment and put in the necessary work. But there are a couple key concepts that you need to understand to be able to have a chance of success. Applying these concepts does not necessarily guarantee success, but a failure to understand them and apply them is almost certain to lead to failure.

Each of these concepts requires a shift from the way most people think. Most people learn as they're growing up from parents, teachers and others that the path to success is to do well in school, get a good education and then get a good job. Work at that job for about 40 years and then retire. But most people start to realize in their 30's or 40's that they're stuck on a treadmill that's not getting them to their goals, and that they're not likely to ever achieve the success they've dreamed of for years.

Fortunately, there's another way. Learn and apply a few key concepts and there's no reason you can't achieve the success you've dreamed of. And it's easier than you think to make money from home online once you understand these ideas.

The first thing to understand is that there's no magic button that will drop success into your lap. The hype that is so much a part of the sales pitch for most internet marketing products and a number of investment schemes is simply a bunch of empty promises. Believe the hype and you'll probably end up losing a lot of time and money while your attempt to build an internet marketing business accomplishes nothing.

So don't fall for the instant, push-button success sales pitches. An honest marketing company with a good network marketing or affiliate marketing program can rest easy knowing it has a solid product that can actually produce real results for those who are willing to work. Such a company will typically have a long track record, solid credentials, and numerous real testimonials. Find one of those and you're on the right path.

Too many people believe in the miracle, the instant success. They bet their dreams of success on a lottery ticket or trip to Las Vegas or Atlantic City or a $497 internet marketing training program. I'm not saying you can't go have fun in a casino - there's no reason not to enjoy yourself. In fact, your life should be all about enjoying yourself. But the lottery or casino is not your ticket to big money and a life of luxury - it's simply a form of entertainment. Poor people bet on that chance and pray for it to come into their lives. Wealthy people enjoy the game without the expectation of making money, and with the simple hope they might get lucky. Put your efforts into achieving wealth in a reasonable manner with work toward an achievable goal, and that leads us to the second concept.

Success can be achieved, and when it arrives it can be vastly greater than you might have expected. It won't show up instantly with a push-button miracle, but if you do the work needed to create success it will show up and you'll be able to make money from home online.

The key is to set a specific goal and set that goal at a level that might seem to be a stretch. For example, set a goal to make your current annual income your monthly income within a year. Is that attainable? Yes! Will it be difficult! You will have to work for it - there's no such thing as a free lunch. Will it be worth it? Only you can answer that question. Take that question seriously and contemplate it - would it be the fulfillment of your dreams to have your current annual income become your monthly income? What would you be willing to do to make it happen? Is it worth is to worth working 15 or 20 hours a week to achieve that?

Here's how I answer it - I will work daily to build my business to achieve the success I am seeking, and I will not let any difficulty or setback deter me. There is a solution to any problem I encounter, and the solution is usually easier than I think it will be. Success is mine, and I'm taking steps daily to achieve it. I will reassess my goals and reset them as needed until I achieve my ultimate goal, and I will not stop until I have reached my goal.

In order to measure your progress toward the success you're seeking, set intermediate goals. For example, if you're just starting out, you need to realize that you have to make your first sale before you'll start making $1000 a week. Yes, it's possible to hit the home run the first time to step up to the plate, but it's not likely. Plan to start small and grow your business, and hope for the home run! The idea that you can spend some money on a program and start making big money quickly is part of the hype mentioned earlier. Most of the people who are actually making money online have started slowly and put in a lot of work before they achieve success. Prevent yourself from getting discouraged by setting intermediate goals and then make a firm commitment to your success and work consistently to reach each goal.

The last concept deals with the value of investing in your business. Many people who attempt to start an online business will approach it timidly and are afraid to invest in their business. Their concern comes from not knowing if the investment will be worthwhile. If your cash flow is tight, spending $20 or $30 or more a month may be difficult on the budget. This is where learning to think like a business owner can make the difference.

Many people who are just starting out in internet marketing will worry about the $20 or $30 each month. An owner will look at the income potential, and realize that the expenditure required is small compared to the income potential. How much would you be willing to spend to assure yourself of an income of $50,000 annually? Would you be willing to spend $500 a year? $1000 a year? Realize that most businesses only see gross profits of about 20 to 25%, which means that if you were to open a coffee shop your expenses to produce $50,000 in annual revenue would typically be in the range of $35,000 to $40,000. Makes that monthly investment of $50 or $100 seem rather insignificant, doesn't it?

You can build a solid, income-producing business without any monetary investment, of course. But doing so means you will have to work for it. If you have the resources to invest in your business then you can achieve the results you're seeking quicker. Having no money to invest in your business is not a problem. It simply means you need to set your expectations accordingly. There are two choices here: either you build your business quickly with some effort and some investment in the business, or you build it more slowly with consistent effort.

Learn these three lessons and apply them. You can use them to create the success you wish to achieve with your online business. To recap:

1. There's no magic, instant push-button path to success. The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.

2. When it comes, success will show up to match the expectations you have set and worked to achieve. Creating an internet marketing business that produces $25,000 annually is not very different from one that produces $250,000 annually. It's simply a difference in scale resulting from the expectations and goals that were set at the beginning and the effort applied to achieve the result.

3. An investment in your business, even a small one, can significantly speed up your results. It still requires work (you can't simply buy success) but the investment can make the work easier and reduce the amount of effort required.

Put these principles to work in your business and you make money from home online and realize your dreams of financial freedom.

How to Begin an Effective Home Business   

What Is Retargeting and Does It Work?

As we travel the country exhibiting at Internet based trade shows, people constantly come up to our booth and ask us about retargeting. "How does it work", "is it effective", "what's the best method", are just some of the common questions.

Retargeting seems to be a hot topic and discussion point these days on the show floor. There are always a couple of retargeting companies at these shows and there are a couple of different types: email, display media and text messaging are the most popular.

How does retargeting actually work?

Let's take display retargeting first: When a consumer visits a website using display retargeting technology a special cookie is placed on their computer. This cookie identifies the user and what website they were on. The cookie relays that information to other websites they visit. If the consumer lands on another website using retargeting it reads the cookie information and shows the consumer an ad based on the cookie. So, for example, if you were looking at shoes at shoes.com and abandoned the site without making a purchase, you could end up seeing a banner from shoes.com at the next website you visited. At that moment you have been "retargeted".

As an advertiser there are some cool things you can with display retargeting. If you have multiple websites or a multiple step process you can adjust the cookie settings to move the consumer from one site to another depending on their actions. You can also set specific information in the cookie that will show the consumer an ad based on the type of shoes they were looking at. If you want to wet your feet in display retargeting Google Display Network is a good place to start. They have all the tools you will need from beginner to advanced and they also have a vast network. However, they are really big and you could spend a lot of money quickly so make sure you cap your daily spend and analyze your ROI.

Email retargeting can be a little trickier and requires more complicated management and strategy. You also need to collect the user's email so this method is more popular for ecommerce sites and used to retarget someone who has abandoned a shopping cart. However, this method can be very effective if you employ one-to-one marketing principles. For example, a user has a pair of Nike Lebron XiD, size 14 in your shopping cart. They fill out your registration form but abandons your cart when he gets to the credit card page. Since you collected his email address on the reg form you can "retarget" him with emails offering a discount on the Nike sneaks he was looking at. A couple of things to remember here:

Keep the email clean and simple. Include a discount or incentive and a picture of the product they were interested in. Timing on the first email should be within the first 24 hours. You should then follow up with 2 or 3 more emails spaced out approx 6 days, then 10 days from the users visit. You will have to remove the user from receiving subsequent emails if they purchase. Otherwise you could piss off a lot of customers who purchased the product and then got an email with a discount for the same product. You now know a lot about this user: gender, is probably active and likes basketball, he is a large person, etc. So, this data will be valuable and help you market this user one-to-one on future promotions.

We've covered two of the most common methods of retargeting. Regarding the text message retargeting I can't say I have much experience to relay. I think the biggest hurdle here is collecting the mobile number and delivery costs.

But when we are exhibiting at trade shows one of our banners boasts "instant retargeting" and this message evokes most of the retargeting questions. What is instant retargeting? Well, it's a method of retargeting a consumer the split "second" they abandon a shopping cart, website or lead gen form. Both email and display retargeting are not capable of grabbing the consumer this quickly. Email has challenges touching the consumers and overcoming low open rates and junk mail filters. Display retargeting has to rely on the user visiting another website that can interpret their cookie and display their banner. Sometimes a user can wait several days or weeks before visiting such a website.

Our method of instant retargeting involves using an automated chat agent to engage a user the second they leave your website. This is done by using javascript code that evokes a virtual chat agent when the user closes a browser or tab, types in another URL or uses the back button. The virtual chat looks and feels like a live operator and answer questions and offers incentives and discounts in an effort to driving the user back to your website. More than likely a user is headed to your competition when they abandon so this is the most effective time and method of retargeting them. A good automated agent campaign takes a little time setting up and getting off the ground but the majority of the heavy lifting including creating the agent scripts is done by us. Once the campaign launches valuable feedback is collected from the chat and passed back to the consumer.

Retargeting is here to stay and will only get better as technology improves. I have mentioned a couple of methods that will help to monetize your current traffic and if done correctly will add to your bottom line. When evaluating companies and technologies I'm sure pricing will be on the forefront. Try to always get a performance based price plan. This puts most of the risk on the solution provider but the big players usually don't work this way. It will be hard to convince Google to go performance based. But this is how we price our solution and there other providers out there with similar structure including no setup or monthly fees. If you have any questions regarding retargeting or automated chat agent solutions feel free to post a reply or contact me directly. For more information on "instant retargeting" please vist TeamSalesAgent.

How to Begin an Effective Home Business   

Using Internet Marketing To Build Your Company

To the small business owners, using internet marketing to build your company may be the way to answer those business needs. This isn't just for online opportunities, internet marketing can be used for local businesses. Such businesses as local contractor work or even beauty shops.

To just look at what businesses are about, the main thing is to have customers and to make sales. Whether it's a product or service, that is what a business provides to make money. Customers may be anything from individuals to corporations, but, the idea is the same.

Internet marketing can help in two areas, customer creation and retention. Most businesses focus on the creation of customers and most do a poor job at it. The tendency is to think that if you provide it then the customers will just show up, i don't think so!

People in business quickly learn that this is just a fantasy. Back in the early days of the internet, it might have been enough just to have a website to bring in people. Having a plain website was enough to turn visitors in customers.

Now, the number of websites have grown to a massive amount. The methods to getting those websites noticed have varied over the years. You need a website along with internet marketing to get the job done.

It takes work to actively get visitors and to build a relationship with those visitors. Search engine optimization takes priority as far as building a website to get visitors to your business. Internet marketing is the best thing you can do for your business. Using that website to attract visitors and to capture their email for your list for later sales. Again, internet marketing can prove to get your business those results.

Now the next area would be the retention part. Retaining customers cost less than creating customers. Retention should be the key to any business plan. Again, email list is an easy path to retaining those customers.

To coin a phrase "the money is in the list". This can be the most valuable asset you can build. An email list can be used to inform customers on special offers, possibly making more sales, and to get their feedback on your business. A relationship that makes loyal customers.

The cost for mailing list services are fairly low-cost, easy to use, and unexplored. Your business using this method can give you a competitive edge over other local businesses. Keeping your customers will raise profits.

Internet marketing can get customers no matter the company or business. Using internet marketing can also help retain your customers for higher profits and satisfied customer base.

How to Begin an Effective Home Business   

Micro Niches - Thinking Small to Earn Big

We've all been taught to think big in terms of personal or professional achievements however working micro niches online can produce big profits! The idea that you can work small markets and still profit big is a bit confusing until of course you consider the ease of establishing your business in these niches!

Let's consider 3 important factors that influence your ability to make money working online that are much easier to address in small markets!

Building Authority

The level of income you make or the success you have developing any businesses on the internet depends upon your reputation! Being perceived as an authority in the field you work will go a long way towards allowing you to profit big! If people are 'drawn' to you based upon your continual display of knowledge or expertise it becomes that much easier to make a sales when you offer something! Due to the fact that small markets have fewer competitors trying to be heard or attempting to establish their authority makes it easier for you to do so!

Communication

This is invaluable for 'learning' what's on the mind of the people who make up these small markets! Gatherings like these tend to be a bit 'clannish' but once you're accepted you've got it made! Also not to be overlooked is the fact that there is much less 'noise' you'll have to compete with in order to be heard! This increases your chance of delivering any messages you're trying to communicate now that you don't have to contend so many others also vying for peoples attention! Having the opportunity and/or the ability to get your message heard plays a HUGE part in your ability to experience big profits!

Promotional Ease

Once you've capture both the attention and the 'regard' by others as being an authority in your field the door is now wide open for you to profit big! Half the damn battle when promoting anything online is getting your messages both seen and listened to as well! Being able to communicate to people in these small markets due to less competition thereby increases your marketing effectiveness and earnings!

Although micro niches may be small in size, if developed properly in terms of establishing a business, they can offer big profits! Our discussion above points out how much easier it 'can' be to establish yourself or your business in small markets! 3 factors that make your efforts more effective when promoting goods and services can all be more easily 'addressed' in a smaller niche! Remember if you expect to profit big with any internet businesses you must first firmly establish yourself in the 3 ways reviewed here today! Small markets quite simply make this aspect of developing your business that much easier if of course you're willing to invest the patience and diligence needed!

How to Begin an Effective Home Business   

Simple Problem Solving Steps

Solving problems is not always easy. You need to be patient and inventive.

But your ability to find solutions to problems will determine your success.

This is the same when working online. If you have your own Digital Business or if you want to build one, you will face a lot of technical problems.

Use the following problems solving steps to overcome this obstacles and to grow your business even faster.

The first reflex you should adopt is to Google for a solution. Of course it's evident. Yet still very few people actually do it. They give up without asking the world-wide web for help.

Don't think that on the whole wide world somebody already faced the same problem as you? And don't you think that this person went online, asking others to help him or even posting the solution himself?

The probabilities are quite high that you'll find the solution by surfing...

However if you cannot find the solution online, then you should maybe simply forget your problem. Forget it, do something else, and come back later.

Most of the times the solution is there, in front of you but you don't see it. Go through your problem again and be sure you didn't just overlooked something in the process.

But maybe not? Maybe you did everything the like you should?

Don't worry. Your next problem solving step will be to ask for help. You can use forums talking about your problem. Forums are an excellent way to get the opinion of more experienced people in your field. Just describe your problem and wait for feedback.

In most cases you will now have the solution to your problem. If not, think also about people you already know and who could help you. Isn't there someone you know who is an expert and who could help you with your problem?

Maybe you don't know that person personally. Just send an email, stay polite and courteous and ask for help. There is no guarantee that the expert will respond to your email. But do you have something to lose? Just give it a try.

Let's assume you didn't get any answers so far. Then you still have a final problem solving step left.

Pay for the solution.

Until now you spent a lot of time looking for a solution without finding one. You should now consider to spend some money to get your problem fixed.

With all the affordable outsource solutions out there today you will find someone to solve your problem quite quickly.

Sooner or later you will face problems when working online. If you give up without finding a solution, you'll probably never become successful.

You must fight to find the solution. Implement the simple problem solving steps we've gone through above and every problem will turn out to become an opportunity.

How to Begin an Effective Home Business