Make A Living - From Home!

If you have ever had a desire to make a living online, you are certainly not alone, as this is something a lot of people dream of doing; at the same time, however, many people who desire to make a living online never actually take any steps toward this dream - and those who do take steps toward this dream often end up discovering that it is far more difficult to bring to life than they originally imagined it would be.

If you are hoping to do what you can to make a living online, the first thing you need to understand is the importance of traffic; the best way to look at traffic is as "currency," as - quite frankly - the more traffic you have on your site, the more money you will have the ability to make, and the best thing of all about traffic is that your potential to gain traffic is virtually uncapped!

The two most important, fundamental things you can do to get traffic to your site are to A) focus on search engine optimization on your site, in order to put your site in a position where it shows up highly on search engine rankings pages, and B) to go to where the traffic is - which means spending lots of time on websites and in forums that pertain to your site, and interacting with others on these websites and in these forums.

And finally, the biggest "extra credit" thing that will help when trying to get people to your site - and to make money as a result - is to be active in social media; when you have a strong social media platform - and when you make it easy for people to share your website and your content through their social media platforms, you will gain tons of additional traffic!

The best thing about making money online is that you can start working on this even while working a full-time job - and once you start making money in your efforts, you can start transitioning out of your full-time job, and can begin to make a full-time living from the comfort of your own home!

Build  your list 3x faster on Autopilot

Learn How To Keep The Customers You Have

If you are in business, you have surely learned the importance of keeping the customers you have already. No matter how many times you have heard it said that 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers, it never hurts to hear it again (and again, and again!). Because of the fact that a small percentage of your customers keep you afloat, it is absolutely vital that you understand the best ways to keep these customers coming back for more, and then to also understand how to turn new customers into repeat customers.

One of the big ways in which businesses fail is by focusing too much on gaining new customers rather than focusing more on the customers they already have. While new customers are important, they should not be your first priority, as they are not your major source of profit.

Out of all the various ways by which you can keep your repeat customers happy, the best way is by finding out what they have to say. By getting to know your customers, you will get to know what their opinion is regarding your business. This is a great benefit, as you can find out what they like, and you can also find out what they dislike! Although large businesses are unable to get to know their customers as individuals, there are still a lot of ways for them to "get to know" their customers; of course, good customer service is one way, but also consider having customer surveys and online response forms.

You can begin to go after new customers once you have made sure that you have built a foundation for keeping your current customers happy. While you will want to focus on advertising in order to bring new customers in, you also need to create a sense of loyalty once they come your way! Again, if you are small, get to know each new customer who comes your way; in this way, you will not stay small for long! And large companies can ensure that new customers will keep coming back if they create a sense of community and of familiarity.

It is easy for businesses to fail, but if you learn how to keep customers coming back, it is just as easy to learn how to thrive as a business!

Build  your list 3x faster on Autopilot

Tips For Keeping Visitors On Your Website

If you are running a website, regardless of whether you have this website in order to promote your small business, or in order to try to make money through search engine marketing, there is a good chance that you will be putting a fair amount of emphasis on getting people to your site - using search engine optimization and other creative efforts in order to do so - but one thing you should also keep in mind is the fact that just because people show up on your site does not necessarily mean they will stay!

Design: Even though it might not make a whole lot of sense when you consider that people did not come to your site for the design, but instead came because they input a search in a search engine and your site showed up, this is still the first thing most visitors will notice; the design of your site does not have to be perfect, but if you do a poor job with your design - to where it bothers visitors - they are likely to leave right away!

Relevance: As long as your design has not chased your visitors away immediately, the next thing they are likely to pay attention to is exactly how relevant the content is to the search they showed up because of; this means that it will be important for you to know what your primary keywords are on each page, as this will enable you to make sure your content will be relevant to the searches that bring people to you.
Quality: And of course, a good design and relevant content will not be able to rescue content that is of a low level of quality - so work hard to keep your focus on this final aspect of your site in order to keep people around, and to make money in the long run!
As you build your website, in addition to your efforts to bring traffic your way, make sure you are paying attention to these important elements, and soon you will discover that you are achieving the success you desire!

Build  your list 3x faster on Autopilot

How To Reach The Right Audience With Your Ads

This is a big time of year for hosting parties now that the summer is winding down and the school year will soon be starting; whether you are wanting to throw an end of summer party, a back-to-school party, or simply a “just because” party, it will be important that you know what you should do in order to plan for the party properly. It is actually very easy to plan for a party properly, but because of how easy it is, many people neglect to make sure they are taking the right steps – and they fail to do the simple things they should do in order to make their party a success.

You might imagine that people will be standing for most of your party (walking around from group to group and mingling with one another), but it is also true that many people will also be sitting, so make sure you have places for people to sit – and that these places are both comfortable and well designed for conversation – as this will go a long way in making your party a success.

In addition to making sure there are places for everyone to sit at your party, you will also want to make sure that everyone has food to eat; you can take a few different approaches with this, as you can provide snack foods, make food with more substance, or have people simply bring food, but regardless of which approach you choose to take, making sure you have food at the party will be essential.

And another thing that will be a big part of ensuring the party's success will be having things for people to do at the party; you do not need to plan out the party on a timeline, as it will be much better to simply “go with the flow,” but you also do not want a party in which there is a long lull in the action, so have things planned that everyone can do in case the party starts slowing down!

When you plan a party with all these tips in mind, it will be very easy for you to not only host a party, but to host a party that is a great success!

Build  your list 3x faster on Autopilot

Using Your iPad For Work

One of the most popular products these days is the iPad, as it gives you a surprisingly natural way to interact with your "computer" by allowing you to hold it in one hand and use the touch screen to navigate - but in addition to its uses as a "toy" or a "diversion," many people find that the iPad is great for more productive things as well, such as work; of course, the iPad is great for work if you are able to use it for such, as it is much more compact and easy to transport (and easy to carry around!) than a laptop - but you must also realize that the iPad was not "designed" to be a work device, and because of this, there are a few things you will need to do in order to turn your iPad into something you can use for work.

The first thing you need to realize is that typing on an iPad is altogether different from typing on an actual keyboard, and unless you are an extraordinarily slow typer, you will not be able to type nearly as fast on an iPad as you would be able to on a keyboard; because of this, one of the main things you will need, in order to turn your iPad into a "work device," is a bluetooth keyboard.

You also need to realize that the iPad is not equipped with Microsoft Word - nor, for that matter, is it equipped with a similar word processing program; because of this, you will need to purchase a program in the app store that will allow you to type in the same way you would at your work computer - and while there are a lot of different apps available for this task, the one that many people find works best is Pages.

And of course, you will need an intuitive way to share files across different computers - and while you can use email for this, this process can be made a whole lot simpler by having iCloud or Dropbox to naturally share files with hardly any effort on your part.

And of course, you will need patience if you want to use your iPad as a work device; it can be difficult to get used to this at first, but once you are used to it, you will realize that you are able to work from your iPad just as well as you can work from your regular computer!

Build  your list 3x faster on Autopilot

The Benefits Of Making Your Business Bilingual

In order to reach the top of the business world, or in order to stay at the top, you have to be able to adjust to the ever-changing business culture. One of the ways in which businesses can adjust is by becoming bilingual (or even multilingual). A lot of American businesses have fallen behind, as companies in other countries continue to add new languages to their plates; in fact, in most non-English-speaking countries, the focus in their businesses has turned to English to enable them to compete in America. You can benefit from following the lead of these companies and becoming bilingual yourself if you are a business executive, a small business owner, or even a small-time employee in a big corporation.

The explanation for business executives regarding this idea is simple. You are expected to be the best at what you do if you are a business executive. Someone else is continuing to improve, even if you are not; this means that your spot at the top is not guaranteed! Add an extra language to your arsenal, and you will find that the scope of your overall power expands as the scope of your communicative powers expands. Furthermore, you will be enabled to communicate more effectively with a wider spectrum of customers when you expand your linguistic prowess, and you will also be able to encourage your employees to follow your lead.

Four years after a small business is birthed, there is only a 40% chance it will still be alive; ten years after a small business is birthed, the chances of it still existing are only 10%. Every advantage you can find when running a small business can be a big deal, and becoming bilingual is a big advantage!

If you are just a regular old employee in a big corporation, you might think you don't have any real need to add a new language. But actually, you would be wrong! As businesses progress to become multilingual, there will be greater opportunities for advancement among those employees who can work with more than one language than for those who cannot. The hard work might not pay off right away, but it will certainly pay off down the road!

You should now find that you are full of the necessary motivation for learning a new language; this is the first step! As for the dedication and the time you will need in order to learn a new language, it will be up to you to provide each of these.

Build  your list 3x faster on Autopilot

Internet Marketing: Why Things Are Better Today Than They Were 10 Years Ago

It does kind of wear you down to listen to the gloom and doom the media espouses every day. Having several friends and relatives who have now been unemployed for almost 2 years, I do have empathy for the tough economy we live in.

However as you look at Internet marketing as we close out the year 2010 I think there are several things that are better today than they were one decade ago. If you want to make money online, in many ways the time has never been better.

1. More opportunities. Many of the same business models continue to perform well. You can make money doing email marketing, affiliate marketing, network marketing, work at home jobs such as get paid to programs, and so on.

What has changed a lot over the last 10 years is the number of opportunities within these business models. You certainly can still build a mailing list and make money in any niche you want to get in.

There are some great opportunities to make money in affiliate marketing. These include getting paid by the click, by the lead, and by the sale.

Network marketing is booming all around the world. The MLM business model has really mastered how to generate leads and build a worldwide business that you can generate residual income from.

2. Proven strategies. These continue to evolve.

For example right now auto-blogging is very hot. Automating blogging efforts, and combining affiliate marketing and outsourcing, is a great way to build a Internet business today.

One thing that hasn't changed is the importance of search engine optimization and getting back links. Article marketing continues to be one of the best strategies for doing this.

Having a personal blog is also a proven strategy that is better today than it was 10 years ago. This is an excellent way to do everything from branding and list building, to social networking and product sales.

3. Better resources. A good example of this is how easy it is to building a website using a WordPress blog. Now you can do this with the click of a button using the Fantastico program most hosting companies offer.

Autoresponders offer fantastic ways to develop your brand image and keep in touch with customers. Automated article submission companies make it very easy to get your name out using article marketing. These are just a few examples of how resources have improved over time.

4. Faster Internet. Today you can sit down and breeze from one page to the next. 10 years ago the Internet was slow, and if were trying to make money on a part-time basis it could be very time consuming. Today that is not the case.

These are just a few examples of why I think things are better today than they were 10 years ago. If you are not making money you really have to look in the mirror and analyze why that is. The opportunities, strategies, and resources have never been better.

Build  your list 3x faster on Autopilot

-->

Tips For Making Money With Search Engine Marketing: The First Steps

Search engine marketing is one of the best ways to make money online (which, of course, translates to being able to make money from home - or from vacation, or from just about anywhere else!), which is the process of creating websites through which you make money via ads and affiliate marketing, and which gives you the grand flexibility of "working for yourself" and being able to work on your own schedule. For every person who finds success with search engine marketing, however, there are scores of people who fail in their SEM attempts, and a large part of the reason for this widespread failure is that many people do not know the steps they should take!

The first thing you need to understand about search engine marketing is that, in addition to "writing for search engines" (knowing all the search engine optimization things you need to do in order to rise to the top of search engine rankings pages), you also need to write for people; after all, people are the ones who will decide whether to stay on your website or not when they visit, and people are the ones who will ultimately decide how much money you make through search engine marketing!

The next thing for you to be aware of is the fact that just because something is popular does not make it a good niche to explore; rather than looking for things that are "popular" (which will often translate to mean "lots of competition from other sites"), look for items that are profitable - and once you find these items, create content that targets keywords that are high on searches and low on competition!

And finally, realize that traffic does not necessarily equate to money; in addition to drawing traffic to your site, you need to make sure the traffic you are bringing your way is full of "buyers" instead of "researchers" - and the way to do this is to make sure you gain a full understanding of the sorts of keywords "buyers" are likely to used, compared to the keywords "researchers" are likely to use, and to make sure you are using this knowledge to your advantage!

Build  your list 3x faster on Autopilot

Making Your Way Online As An Entrepreneur

If you are a small business owner or working in some sort of entrepreneurial capacity, there is a good chance you took this step in your career because you wanted to eventually be able to work fewer hours while making more money than you were making before; while this is certainly something any small business owner or entreprenur can attain, however, this tends to end up being the opposite of reality for most entrepreneurs and small business owners - and this is largely because they do not know the steps they need to take in order to dominate online.

The first step to dominating online as an entrepreneur is using search engine optimization to dominate search engines; some people simply use SEO as a means to gain a bit of extra exposure on search engine rankings pages, but when you take the time to learn all the ins and outs of SEOs, you can cause your site to gain a top ranking, and to gain tons of new traffic as a result!

In addition to learning the ins and outs of SEO in order to take full advantage of its power, you will want to use social media to get people to swarm to your site; social media is a great way to connect with people you would otherwise never be able to come in contact with - and these connections can often lead to a great boost in profits for you.

And finally, you should understand that your website will not be much good to you - unless you have this site optimized for sales; do not be shy to make it obvious that your site is in place in order for sales to be made, as this will enable you to make a lot more sales to the people who come your way!

Realize that small business and your entrepreneurial efforts are games that can certainly be won - and you can be the one to win in them when you understand how to take the right approach, and when you implement this right approach in your efforts!

Build  your list 3x faster on Autopilot

Tips For Hiring Dependable Employees

Hiring dependable employees will be one of the most important aspects of maintaining success as a business, regardless of whether you own a small business or are in charge of hiring for a much larger organization; of course, “hiring dependable employees” can often be far more difficult than it sounds. Each different business is undeniably unique unto itself, and the necessary process for hiring dependable employees will vary slightly from situation to situation, but if you follow these tips, you will be on the right path to making sure the employees you hire will be dependable and worth keeping around for a long period of time.

Many people make the mistake of focusing on past employment history and on credentials when interviewing a prospective employee, but while these things are already listed in the prospective employee's resume, one thing you can really only get a good feel for in person is the employee's character; focus on character as much as possible in your interview, devising questions that will help you to get a good feel for what the interviewee's character is like.

Doing a background check on the people you are interviewing is also helpful; some companies choose to skip this step because of the cost of doing a background check on so many different people, but this is an important step in the hiring process, and it is well worth the money you will spend.

And of course, calling the interviewee's former employers will also be worth your time; while calling the references is a fine thing to do, you can pretty well assume that they will not put down a reference if that reference will say something negative about them, but calling their former employers will give you a much better picture of what they will be like as an employee of yours.

Build  your list 3x faster on Autopilot

What is the Best Day for Email Marketing?

Every internet marketer has either heard about or tried email marketing over their career. Remember years ago when people started buying all these lists of email addresses, and there was even software designed to send, or "blast" these emails to this list in the hopes of getting your message out to your intended audience? Spam was not a problem yet, and the floodgates were open.

These days, the internet marketing world has definitely changed, people hate spam more than ever (me too!), but the fact is that email marketing is still a viable marketing strategy in 2010. What does that mean in layman's terms? People still are making profit by sending out emails to lists of email addresses.

For those of you who are new to internet marketing, the idea is simple. You obtain a targeted list of people you want to market your product, opportunity, or service to. You then write an attention grabbing subject line, your reader opens the email, reads the body, and then is compelled to take some sort of action based on some directions given in the body, typically using a link to a website.

I could probably write 10 articles all revolving around email marketing, but this one is going to strictly focus on one question - "What is the best day to send email advertisements?"

Some people will say that the best day to send is whatever works best for your schedule. Whatever fits into your Daily Method of Operation. I beg to differ. Studies have been done to show that more people make income, or sales, from emails that are sent out on Fridays. My opinion is that the reason for that is that 'most' people are paid on Friday's, and are in the 'weekend' mood and are willing to part with their cash on Fridays more than any other day of the week.

As an internet marketer, your obvious goal is to make sales. Make money. But not everyone involved in email advertising has the goal of making money directly from an email. Their goal with the email is to get someone to a website, getting them into your sales funnel, so that eventually, at the right time, you can make a sale. So the question then becomes "What is the best day to send email advertisements - IF you want to concentrate on Clicks?"

Statistically, Monday and Thursday are the best day for clicks. You get into the office Monday, and your inbox is full of emails sent since Friday and you are fresh and ready to go for your week. You're mind is concentrated on work, your job or career, and if the headline and message are right, more people will click on the link to your landing page on Mondays.

Regarding Thursdays - my theory here is that lots of people are TOO busy Monday, Tuesday, & Wednesday with their job responsibilities to even look at an email from you, and Thursday is when they finally get around to it.

Build  your list 3x faster on Autopilot

-->

Dealing With Criticism At Work

When you invest a ton of your personal time and energy into your job, it can seem like your job is your "life" - no matter how much effort you might put into trying to convince yourself otherwise - and because of this tendency for people to feel this way about their jobs, it can be a tough pill to swallow when they encounter what they feel is unwarranted criticism or negative feedback about their work. While dealing with criticism in an area into which you invest so much of your own time and energy can be difficult, it is also quite possible to deal with this criticism in an appropriate manner, as long as you take the proper approach.

As far as "handling criticism in the workplace" goes, you will first need to realize that you should accept it when it comes your way; if your boss is giving you criticism at work, it is likely because they see something that they feel you should fix, and arguing with them is not going to make the situation any better!

Find a place where you can be alone for a little while after you have accepted the criticism; in this "alone place," think about the criticism you were given, and establish whether there is anything you can take away from the things that were said. You should use this time as an opportunity to acknowledge the things about your performance that are worth commending, but you should also see what truth and means for learning you can take from the things that were said to you.

Finally, the most important part of dealing with criticism at work is reminding yourself that - no matter how much time you spend at your job - your job is not your life, and there are things in your life that are more important than your job! Coming to this realization will make it much easier for you to learn from criticism at work, without getting weighed down by the negative aspects of the criticism in question.

Build  your list 3x faster on Autopilot