April 2nd, 2009 by Brian Armstrong

Making money online is the goal of tens of thousands of would-be internet entrepreneurs. For many people, this is easier said than done. For others, making money online seems to come easy. The difference between these two groups of people is not in the skill set alone, but also in the mindset. Now, positive thinking alone will not make you a ton of money, but once you have your website all set up, you can follow some of the following advice to make sure your mom isn’t your only visitor and hopefully you’ll be able to move out of her basement.

Reason 1: You forgot about marketing. This is kinda one of those “duh” moments, but if you build this amazing site (or even a totally lame site) and don’t have a marketing plan, your likelihood of making money accidently is virtually non-existent. Basically, don’t forget about marketing. With every business plan you ever come up with, there should be a detailed marketing plan included.

Reason 2: You’re too focused on the look and feel of your website. Some of the ugliest websites ever are making more money than your website. When I first started making websites, I would spend hours getting a template ready which usually included the graphics for the various pages. The problem was, these templates would never be just right and the websites would always be “under construction”. Don’t make the same mistakes I did. Your entire focus when it comes to the design should be setting up a website that doesn’t distract people from why they are there. I use templates with a light background and dark text. This makes the site easy to read.

Reason 3: You website doesn’t sell. When visitors actually get to your site, does your site do an effective job at convincing people to give you their money? Does your website have an irresistible offer? Have you tested this offer? These are a few questions that you should keep in mind while you’re designing your site. One mistake webmasters make is that they assume their visitors think like they do. Test all of your assumptions. If you aren’t testing, you’re losing money. This is the reason that in some niche markets, certain internet marketers can make money while others lose money.

Reason 4: You don’t write any articles. Outside of paying for each visitor to your site through something like pay per click, writing articles is one of the very best ways to get traffic. Articles help with not only traffic from some of the larger article websites, but this also produces several links back to your website which is one of the main factors that determines where your website will rank within the search engines.

Reason 5: You don’t do pay-per-click advertising. Of all the ways to get into a market, pay-per-click is one of the very best simply because its so scientific. There’s definitely a component of art and psychology that goes into marketing, but all of this is very testable meaning you can test it. You can test which keywords produce sales, which advertisements produce sales and which landing pages produce results. This is something you can’t achieve with any other method as quickly.

Making money from your website doesn’t have to be complicated. Remember that succeeding in business is a matter of consistent effort applied to correct principles. In a big way, business is a numbers game. A certain amount of visitors are going to click on your link and a percentage of those will convert into customers. Increasing your percentages at each stage can be achieved through statistical analysis and testing various components of the ad copy.

internet, Internet Business, Internet Marketing, make money online, Marketing, online marketing, small business

March 4th, 2009 by Daniel Z. Kane

Even newbie webmasters know that the more links they can get to their websites, the higher their search engine rankings are likely to be. What they may not realize is how many different ways there are to obtain those links.

Here are the top 10.

1. Submit your website to directories. Some require a fee, but most do not.

2. Submit your site to online classified ad pages. Most are either free or very inexpensive.

3. Initiate link swaps with other website owners. Seek out those whose sites are on subjects related to yours, but avoid contacting competitors.

4. Try podcasting. I know a few folks who have had great success with it.

5. Submit videos to video sites.

6. Register at social bookmarking and other social sites.

7. Utilize press releases. Several services are available to assist you, some at no cost.

8. Become a blogger. Write at least two articles a month, and link from your blog to your website. This is a “must” activity. If you’re not blogging you’re not trying.

9. Write articles and send them to article distribution sites. Include an author’s box with a link to your website.

10. Post on forums and comment on blog sites. Caution; do not spam.

Of course, you do not have to engage in all of the activities above. Just pick a few and be persistent; if you do, you will be rewarded.

article marketing, link building, link exchanges, Marketing, online marketing, search engine optimization, website promotion, writing press releases