It is not reasonable to think that you can run an Internet business with a website or a blog without a few skills. Some level of education is going to be required of you before starting. What do you need to learn to make money online is another way to look at it. A skill is generally something that is acquired either by learning or by practical experience. When it comes to making money online with an Internet business a few of those skills are as follows:
1. You must learn basic HTML code. We’re not talking about building fancy websites, but we are talking about being able to add a graphic, or hyperlink a keyword phrase to a product, or to rewrite a paragraph.
These are very basic things, yet it’s surprising how many people are attempting to run an Internet business without knowing basic HTML. If you’re not willing to do this then you are going to be paying someone to do it for you for the life of your business.That may or may not be something you are willing to do.
2. You are going to need basic computer skills such as typing, copying and pasting, sending e-mail, bolding, italicizing, underlying words, and so on. Because you are running an Internet business sitting in front of a computer all day this would seem to be understood.
3. Getting traffic to your blog or website is a third thing you are going to need to learn how to do. This may be the most critical of all because without visitors you will never make any sales of the best eye cream for wrinkles. Spending the majority of your time driving traffic to your site is a suggestion I would make after you get it all set up.
4. Another thing you will need to learn that isn’t directly related to your business per se, but is related to your success, is working on improving yourself. Your attitude can have a huge impact on how successful you are.
It’s very easy to get negative in the early days of an Internet marketing business, because you’re not going to see the quick results that you want. Because it is such a competitive industry you can get discouraged even after you become successful.
Mastering things such as goal setting for example can really play a role in how much money you make online. If this is not something that comes to you naturally, then it will be something you need to learn how to do.
We can list several things here, but my point is if you have an Internet business you are going to have to learn how to do things online. Even if you expect to work on the Internet for someone else you still need basic skills to build to do that.
You may or may not have some of the skills already depending how old you are. Regardless to make money online there are always new things you’re going to have to learn.
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Four Basic Marketing Tips
Marketing online may seem easy, but it is much harder than you can imagine. Statistics show that 20 percent of the internet marketers are making 80 percent of the income. This leaves only 20 percent of the income for 80 percent of the rest of you.
You can be successful online if you follow the internet marketing tips listed below.
1. When you are choosing which product or service to promote it is important that you choose the product or service that will be able to sell and not the one which you will get the most commission with.
You run the risk of not selling any products at all if you promote something that is not wanted but has a high commission rate. Likewise though, if you sell a product that is wanted with a decent commission you have a higher chance of making money.
2. If you are going to enter into a field like Travel it is important that you become an expert in that field. If you become a credible source on a subject on the internet people will begin to trust your opinion and you will be able to sell them the product or service you are selling.
The best way to become a credible source in your field is to write articles on your field and distribute them through a variety of article directories. Another way is to go through forums and help people who ask for it. Both of these ways are great to show that you are knowledgeable in your field and are good ways to get traffic to your site and promote your product.
3. Another good way to promote a product is to provide a testimonial of it. If you have tried the product or service than putting your own testimonial of it on your site is a great way to promote it. If you have not personally tried the product you should find reviews of it and place them on your site.
4. One of the most important tip to keep in mind is you must have a good stream of traffic to your web sites. Traffic is the key to having a successful website. You will not see the results that you are looking for without a constant flow of visitors to your website.
Search engine optimization (seo) is one of the best ways to generate traffic to your site. So that you appear on search engine searches every one of your web sites needs to be optimized for a specific keyword. Spend a little time sometimes and google information on how-to 'seo', it's free.
If you want to be one of the people in the 20 percent that are making 80 percent of the income than you need to follow these basic internet marketing tips.
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Simple Strategy To Build An Affiliate Business
If you are not building your e-mail marketing list at the same time as you promote your affiliate marketing business, you are missing out. In this article we want to convince you why you should get busy building a list of your own.
Affiliate marketing is great because you are given your own website coded with your ID number to promote and sell products for affiliate merchants. This makes it very easy for people to start an affiliate marketing business of their own right away.
However, there are two problems with using the website that you are given by the merchant that you represent.
1. The first problem is that you are now promoting a website that everyone else is also promoting. This makes it hard for you to differentiate yourself and to add any of your own personality to the product you’re selling.
2. The second problem is that you do not have any way to build a follow-up mailing list. Because many customers for navigation software will not buy on the first visit, you are losing that potential customer, because you have no way to follow up with them.
Therefore, you can understand why we say it’s important that you build an e-mail marketing list of your own. So how do you do that when you’re an affiliate marketer?
The way you do that is, you design a splashpage or landing page of your own that is there to capture contact information of your visitor. On that splash page is a sign-up form where you can request information such as your visitor’s name, e-mail address, phone number, or whatever you want.
That contact form is sent to an autoresponder where your visitor’s contact information is kept for future follow. In that autoresponder you want to have a series of messages describing the benefits of the product you are promoting as an affiliate.
Now you advertise your new splash page instead of promoting your affiliate website. Does this make sense?
You create a webpage of your own for free on many various websites online. Understand that to generate free splash pages it's likely you will have advertising ads on them from the owners unless the page is purchased. There are thousands of cheap but effective places to get your own webpages.
Hopefully now you will see the benefits of building a list while you are also building your affiliate marketing business. This is a very simple strategy to implement and one all affiliate marketer should be doing, starting today, if they are not already.
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Three Reasons People Do Not Make Money Internet Marketing
There is no doubt that making money online is not as easy as it sounds. Unfortunately many people are their own worst enemies. In this article I want to talk about three reasons people fail in Internet marketing online, and therefore never make any money.
When you first start off with your Internet marketing career it is very easy to sign up for various newsletters and RSS feeds. This can be a great source of information, but it can also be one of the worst things you can do in the long run.
The reason for this is, you will find yourself every day he’d been hit up to spend money on the next great tip, or report, or e-book. You may be given new opportunities to make money that sound better than the one in your hand and you find yourself switching on a regular basis.
The first thing you’re going to need to do if you plan on succeeding at Internet marketing is to focus on one opportunity at a time. You do this by becoming convinced that this is the best opportunity on the Internet today.
Then you spend all of your time and energy promoting your product opportunity. As you begin to create your own mailing list and follow up and began making sales you will find it even easier to focus on the opportunity that you are in.
The second thing that you must have is self-discipline. Self-discipline is something that only you can provide for yourself. If you’re an entrepreneur in spirit then you will find it easy to get up and go to work every day on your Internet marketing business.
You will have no boss telling you what to do therefore it is up to you. Many people cannot deal with this freedom, and therefore they fail to get their Internet marketing business off the ground.
The third thing to do is develop Internet marketing skills. Depending on the type of business that you develop you may need to learn how to blog, do basic HTML, load an auto responder with messages, write sales copy or classified ads, and so on.
There is no right or wrong way to build an Internet business. But everyone that is successful, either develops the skills it takes to get to that point, or they outsource much of their business.
These are the three main reasons people fail internet marketing. They do not stay focused, they do not have self-discipline, and they do not develope the necessary skills. Hopefully, we are not talking about you.
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Above you have learnt all the basics in how to start your internet marketing. Next comes the people (prospects) you will contact on the 'frontline' during your advertising campaigns.
The following 10 items are the most costly frontline mistakes you can make as a internet marketing affiliate. Read on and I will help you avoid these all-too-common mistakes..
1) Laser Your Focus On Your Prospects, Not On Your Company.
You must focus all your marketing communications on your prospect, Period.
Forget how great your company is…save that for later, always begin with your focus on your prospect and their concerns.
Remember this; the prospect is interested in one thing and *ONE THING *only;
What is in it for them.
2) Know Everything About Your Prospect And Their Problems.
Remember this…people buy because they have a problem.
People will not buy from you just for the sake of buying or even because you’ve been in business for twenty years. Think for a second about your own personal reasons for buying anything, and you’ll see what I mean.
The more you know about a prospect, the easier it will be to solve their problem. Your job is to uncover their problem and present your product or service as the solution.
You must present facts based on specific benefits. You must communicate to them that they must buy what you are selling to immediately solve their problem, which will lead a happier more productive life.
3) Know What Specific Benefits Your Product/Service Provides.
Features and benefits are completely different so don’t get them confused.
Remember this; Features are about the product…Benefits are about the prospect.
Like I stated earlier, your prospect is only interested in one thing. The benefits he/she will receive by owning your product.
Look at it this way; how does the fact that your company has been in business for twenty years help me paint my living room? Instead, tell me what amazing new system that you have to paint my room with less effort and in less time. Tell me how if I purchase this new system (super magic paint roller) today that is guaranteed to give me great results … and you will include a special offer. Tell me that and you’ve made a sale. More on special offers later.
4) Qualify Your PROSPECTS Before You Spend Any Money Marketing Your Products/Services To Them.
It continually blows my mind how many expensive promotional items I get sent to me without anyone EVER qualifying me as being 1) Interested in the product/service 2) Being able to afford the product/service. 3) Having any need currently or in the future for the product/service. I will never buy anything from that company no matter how dazzling the promotion they present to me. But…why don’t they know that? SIMPLE….they never took the time to qualify me as a prospect. There are many ways to qualify prospects I will cover more on this later. Don’t make this mistake!
5) Never Focus Your Marketing Communications At The Entire World.
This is another very common mistake that I see entrepreneurs make over and over again. I call this type of marketing the shot-gun method. Just blast a bunch of marketing material out there and hope and pray that something happens….hope that just maybe you might make a sale. This is a big waste of marketing dollars and time.
You can’t be everything to everyone. You need to focus your attention on a specific tightly targeted market. You will sell more of what you have to offer to a smaller more focused market and save money in the process by cutting your cost-per-sale dramatically.
Remember this…Focus…Focus…Focus!
6) State The Specific Problem That The Prospect Has And What It Is Costing Him/Her Every Minute It Is Left Unsolved.
People do things for two reasons and two reasons only. To avoid pain or gain pleasure. In order to get your prospect to take notice of what you are selling you must effectively communicate to your prospect what it is costing them for ignoring your message.
Remember to explain the main BENEFIT of your product as the SOLUTION to the problem you just stated.
This can be done in the form of a headline for example…
“Stop Wasting Your Valuable Time and Money Waiting For XYZ”….so on and so on.
7) Use The First Line Of Your Message To Attract Attention.
All too often we get caught up in another very common marketing trap. This one is extremely hazardous to your wealth. Scan over your marketing materials and you will probably see the following; a fancy company logo, your address, and something about how good you think you are.
The problem here is that the prospect doesn’t give a damn how great you think your company is or how fancy your logo looks.
The only radio station they are tuned into is WII.FM (what’s in it for me). If you begin any marketing piece with a strong bold statement about what’s in it for your prospect you will capture the attention of your audience immediately. The first thing the prospect must see is the statement of their problem backed up by a solution you have, backed up by the cost of not solving it immediately.
8) Motivate Your Prospect To Act Immediately While You Have Their Attention!
Now that you have their undivided attention and have created a need for what you are selling, you have to motivate your prospect to take immediate action. Why? Because they are excited about it now … wait to long and you know what will happen? The average consumer will completely forget about what you can or cannot do for them and quickly move to the next exciting offer.
Once you have convinced the prospect that you have the solution to their problem you have completed the fist step to a successful sale. However it will do you absolutely no good toy have the prospect ready to act but have no reason for them toy act immediately.
This is accomplished by using time deadlines, special “limited time” offers, two for one sales, cash discounts etc….you have to tell your prospects you have a solution if they order today, and you will add some FREE bonuses, add a discount of XXX, an entertainment or travel certificate, pay for the shipping etc. It’s of no value to you in getting your prospect motivated to buy and not give them a great reason to act Today!!!
9) Use Testimonials In All Your Marketing Communications.
To a prospect who is receiving your materials for the first time, your company has little or no credibility. They don’t know, like or trust you yet. You are virtually unknown toy the prospect. To getting around this hurdle and convincing your prospect that others with similar problems HAVE truly benefited in a positive way from your product or service is the fastest most effective way to gain your prospects confidence.
Each time you get positive feedback from your customers or clients ask them if you can quote them, even if it’s just on the telephone. Keep a file on these quotes and the next time you sit down to work on your next marketing piece…use them. Failure to use testimonials will result in great difficulty gaining a new prospects confidence and will directly impede your sales. The rule of thumb is two testimonials per page; more might be acceptable but never less than two per page.
10 ) Offer A Strong Risk Reversal or Guarantee Of Satisfaction.
The common belief that offering a strong guarantee will result in more returns is FALSE.
In fact, by offering a better guarantee you will invariably sell more of your products or services without necessarily increasing your net percentage of returns. Your prospects will be converted into customers or clients more quickly because your guarantee implies faith in the product or service by your company. This may be the final step in getting many stubborn prospects to commit to purchase what you have to offer.
“Simplifying The Purchasing Process As A Final Step”
Do not make purchasing your product difficult…all the marketing in the world is useless if purchasing your product is not made easy. We are a people accustomed to instant and immediate gratification and it is not only necessary, it is expected.
Conclusion: As you can see marketing is a multi-faceted process that requires a great amount of preparation and is often over-looked as being anything more than a nuisance to the person creating the marketing communications. I can promise you this; if you follow the 10 guidelines I just presented to you, you will immediately increase your response rates and ultimately your sales.
All the best.
Levi Manners
AVG PCSecurity
