Make Money Starting Your Own Home Business

You’ve been thinking about starting your own home business, but until now, it’s been just a dream. Now I’m going to help it become a reality for you. In part 2 How to Start a Home Business – Getting Started, I cover the following: constructing a website, setting up a sales processing system, personal customer service, open for business, and finally review, rewrite, and revise.

If you missed part 1, here’s a link to How to Start a Home Business – Getting Started.

Step 6: Constructing A Website

Today web sites are becoming easier to create. You don’t even have to know a line of HTML in order to create an effective Web page yourself. Pick a Web address (otherwise known as a URL, or Uniform Resource Locator) that’s easy to remember. You can purchase a short domain-name alias, such as company.com, to replace a longer one like internetprovider.com/~username/companyname/index.html. If the ideal dot-com (.com) name isn’t available, you can choose one of the newer domain suffixes such as .biz.

An easy way to get a great website that has everything and is fully optimized is to use Site Build It, they help you every step of the way and provide plenty of video tutorials. This is the way to go if you don’t know anything about website building. Read my Site Build It article review for more information.

Another popular option is WordPress, a templating system which includes widgets that can be rearranged without editing PHP or HTML code, as well as themes that can be installed and switched between. The PHP and HTML code in themes can also be edited for more advanced customizations.

If your interested in building your own website, be sure to check out my templates photoshop and website design articles. You’ll find lot’s of great content to help you get started with html or wordpress.

Deciding On A Top – Level Domain Name

Where does a business like yours get the easy-to-remember addresses you need? You purchase them from one of the approved domain name registrars. A registrar is a business that has been designated by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) as having the responsibility for keeping track of the names registered in one of the top-level domains. Originally, there were six domains; but as .com and others became crowded, alternatives were eventually approved.

If you need to purchase a domain name, you’ll need a good domain registration company. Team up with the internets best. GoDaddy the internets #1 domain registrar, also the company I use for all my domain registration needs.

The domains available are shown below.

The list of domains presented by ICANN indicates that certain domains are “restricted” only to certain types of individuals or organizations. For instance, .biz is restricted to businesses, .pro is restricted to licensed professionals, and so on. In actual practice, businesses don’t observe such restrictions very strictly. The .net domain, which was originally intended for network service providers such as ISPs and Web hosts, is commonly used by businesses that can’t find their ideal name in the .com domain, for example. You aren’t necessarily limited to one domain, either.

Make Your Site Content – Rich

Provide Compelling Content

The textual component of a Web site is what attracts visitors and keeps them coming back on a regular basis. The more useful the information and compelling content you provide, the more visits your site will receive. By compelling content, I’m talking about words, headings, or images that induce visitors to interact with your site in some way. You can make your content compelling in a number of ways:

Provide a call to action, for example “Click Here!” or “Buy Now!”

Explain how the reader will benefit by clicking a link and exploring your web site.

Briefly and concisely summarize your business. Concise communication is key to having your dream realized.

Scan or use a digital camera to capture images of your sale items (or of the services you provide), and post them on a Web page called Products.

Don’t forget the personal touch when it comes to connecting with your customers’ needs. People who shop online don’t get to meet their merchants in person, so anything you can tell about yourself helps to personalize the process and put your visitors at ease.

Step 7: Setting Up A Sales Processing System

Online Success

Many businesses go online and then are surprised by their own success. They don’t have systems in place for finalizing sales, shipping out purchased goods in a timely manner, and tracking finances and inventory.

An excellent way to plan for success is to set up ways to track your business finances and to create a secure purchasing environment for your online customers. That way, you can build on your success rather than be surprised by it.

Providing A Means For Secure Transactions

Getting paid is the key to survival as well as success. When your business exists only online, the payment process is not always straightforward. Make your Web site a safe and easy place for customers to pay you. Provide different payment options and build your customers’ level of trust any way you can.

Paypal offers a great way to start accepting credit card and check payments online, all you do is put in your PayPal link on your website and let PayPal do the rest. For more details on setting up a paypal merchant account visit PayPal.com.

Becoming A Credit Card Merchant And Setting Up A Merchant Account

The words electronic commerce or e-commerce bring to mind visions of online forms and credit card data that is transmitted over the Internet. Do you have to provide such service in order to run a successful online business? Not necessarily. Being a credit card merchant makes life easier for your customers, to be sure, but it also adds complications and extra costs to your operation.

I don’t want to discourage you from becoming credit card ready by any means, but you need to be aware of the steps (and the expenses) involved, many of which may not occur to you when you’re just starting out. For example, you may not be aware of one or more of the following:

Merchant accounts: You have to apply and be approved for a special bank account called a merchant account in order for a bank to process the credit card orders that you receive. If you work through traditional banks, approval can take days or weeks. However, a number of online merchant account businesses are providing hot competition, which includes streamlining the application process.

Fees: Fees can be high but they vary widely, and it pays to shop around. Some banks charge a merchant application fee ($300 to $800). On the other hand, some online companies such as PayPal charge no application fee.

Discount rates: All banks and merchant account companies (and even payment companies like PayPal) charge a usage fee, deceptively called a discount rate. Typically, this fee ranges from 1 to 4 percent of each transaction. Plus, you may have to pay a monthly premium charge in the range of $30–70 to the bank.

American Express and Discover: If you want to accept payments from American Express and Discover cardholders, you must make arrangements through the companies themselves. You can apply online to be an American Express card merchant by going to the American Express Merchant Homepage and clicking the Apply to Accept the Card link. At the Discover Card merchant site, click the Become a Merchant link, which leads you to the application for credit card merchants.

Software and hardware: Unless you depend on a payment service such as PayPal, you need software or hardware to process transactions and transmit the data to the banking system. If you plan to accept credit card numbers online only and don’t need a device to handle actual “card swipes” from in-person customers, you can use your computer modem to transmit the data. 1st American Card Service lets you use software called PCCharge Express for processing transactions with your browser, but you have to either purchase the software for $295 or lease it for rates that vary from $22 to $34 per year. The hardware involved is a terminal or phone line, which you can either purchase for $229 or lease for anywhere from $17 to $26 per month, depending on the length of the lease.

The good news is that getting merchant status is becoming easier, as more banks accept the notion that businesses don’t have to have an actual, physical storefront in order to be successful.

Step 8: Personal Customer Service

Outstanding Personal Customer Service

The Internet may not seem like a place for the personal touch, but technology didn’t actually create the Internet and all of its content; people did that. In fact, the Internet is a great place to provide your clients and customers with outstanding, personal customer service.

In many cases, customer service on the Internet is a matter of being available and responding quickly to all inquiries. You check your e-mail regularly; you make sure you respond within a day; you cheerfully solve problems and hand out refunds if needed. By helping your customers, you help yourself, too. You build loyalty as well as credibility among your clientele. For many small businesses, the key to competing effectively with larger competitors is by providing superior customer service.

Your knowledge and experience are among your most valuable commodities. So you may be surprised when I suggest that you give them away for free. Why? It’s a “try before you buy” concept. Helping people for free builds your credibility and makes them more likely to pay for your services down the road.

Someone once told me “if you give everything and more away for free, then people will know what you have for sale is really good and worth buying”, and I truly believe that.

Make Your Web Site A Go-To Resource Site

Many online entrepreneurs succeed by making their Web sites not only a place for sales and promotion but also an indispensable resource, full of useful hyperlinks and other information, that customers want to visit again and again. For example, I give away a lot of valuable home business content for free on www.makecashnow.biz. I feel strongly that the secret on the Web is to provide a solution to a problem and, for the most part, to do it for free.

I could have easily made a ebook full of many of my great tips and sold it for $50, but instead I made the content free and accessible to everyone. I choose to make money thru advertising, which most people will click on when they are ready to leave my site. Advertising is a great way to make money with your website, we will talk about it more later.

In order to be successful and make money, you need to give people a reason to visit your site on a regular basis. Having repeat customers makes it easier to be successful, otherwise you’ll have to generate new traffic each and every day.

Email Auto-responders

Become An Expert E-mailer

For an online business, knowing the names and addresses of people who visit and who don’t necessarily make purchases is a gold mine of information. The business can use the contact information to send members special offers and news releases; the more frequently contact is maintained, the more likely those casual shoppers will eventually turn into
paying customers.

Aweber is one of the best company’s to use for your email auto-responder needs, they are the industry leader and their program features are excellent.

Use an auto-responder to email newsletters, offers, tips, or free gifts.

Become A Super e-mailer

E-mail is, in my opinion, is the single most important marketing tool that you can use to boost your online business. Becoming an expert e-mail user increases your contacts and provides you with new sources of support, too.

The two best and easiest e-mail strategies are the following:

Check your e-mail regularly and as often as possible.

Respond to e-mail inquiries immediately.

Additionally, you can e-mail inquiries about co-marketing opportunities to other Web sites similar to your own. Ask other online business owners if they will provide links to your site in exchange for you providing links to theirs. And always include a signature file with your message that includes the name of your business and a link to your business site.

Step 9: Open For Business

Get The Word Out

In order to be successful, small businesses need to get the word out to the people who are likely to purchase what they have to offer. If this group turns out to be only a narrow market, so much the better; the Internet is great for connecting to niche markets that share a common interest.

The Internet provides many unique and effective ways for small businesses to advertise, including search services, e-mail, newsgroups, electronic mailing lists, and more.

Try them all and see which ones are most effective for you! Don’t forget about advertising offline as well, offline advertising can still be very effective.

Listing Your site with Search Engines

How, exactly, do you get listed on the search engines such as Yahoo! and Lycos? Frankly, it’s getting more difficult. Many of the big search services charge for listings. But some let you contribute a listing for free, though there’s no guarantee if or when you’ll see your site included in their databases.

Add your site to local searches: Most of the search engines have local search functions, and you should definitely appear there. Visit www.local.yahoo.com, www.local.google.com, and www.superpages.com to list your site.

You can also increase the chances that search services will list your site by including special keywords and site descriptions in the HTML commands for your Web pages. You place these keywords after a special HTML command (the <META> tag), making them invisible to the casual viewer of your site.

You will also need to make sure all your web pages have been search engine optimized, so the search engines will pick them up. Be sure to read my search engine optimization articles so you know exactly what you need to do.

Step 10: Review, Rewrite, and Revise

Update Regularly

Getting your business online now and then updating your site regularly is better than waiting to unveil the perfect Web site all at one time. In fact, seeing your site improve and grow is one of the best things about going online. Over time, you can create contests, strike up cooperative relationships with other businesses, and add more background information about your products and services.

Businesses on the Web need to evaluate and revise their practices on a regular basis. Online business is a process of trial and error. Some promotions work better than others. The point is that it needs to be an ongoing process and a long-term commitment. Taking a chance and profiting from your mistakes is better than not trying in the first place.

Another thing to remember, content can become dated you may need to update or replace it from time to time. Also consider changing what’s on your home page from time to time. Add new pictures, new text, if there’s a holiday coming up use something holiday themed. People like to see new content and tire of looking at the same old thing.

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Make Money Starting Your Own Home Business

You’ve been thinking about starting your own home business, but until now, it’s been just a dream. After all, you’re a very busy person. You have a full-time job, whether it’s running your home or working outside your home. Or perhaps you’ve recently been through some life-changing event and are ready to take off in a new direction. Then the economy took a turn for the worse, and you were reluctant to make a big career change.

Well, I have some news for you: Now is the perfect time to turn your dream into reality by starting your own online home business. Individuals just like you are making money and enriching their lives by operating businesses online. Small business owners can now work any time of the night or day in their spare bedrooms, local libraries, or neighborhood coffee shops. And there are new ways of making money online, such as starting a blog, selling products online thru affiliate programs, or starting a full-time business on eBay.

Now let’s look at the keys to success:

Having a good idea: If you have a product to sell that people have an appetite for, and if your competition is slim, your chances of success are great!

Working hard: When becoming your own boss, you can make yourself work harder than any of your former bosses ever could. If you put in the effort and have patience through the inevitable ups and downs, you will be successful.

Preparing for success: If you believe that you will succeed, you probably will. Believe in yourself and proceed as though you’re going to be successful. Together with your good ideas and hard work, your confidence will pay off.

This is a great time to start an online home business. People who are getting into e-commerce today have advantages over those who started out two or three years ago. Simply put, both consumers and businesses are smarter. There are more home business experts than ever before, so it’s easier to make things happen.

Start Your Own Internet Business

The percentage of people able to competently order is far higher. People aren’t as nervous as they used to be about completing credit card transactions. After an amazingly short time, the Web has changed from an unknown and somewhat scary medium to something as easy as 123 for most users.

The Internet is a perfect venue for individuals who want to start their own business, who like using computers, and who believe that cyberspace is the place to do it. You don’t need much money to get started, after all. If you already have a computer and an Internet connection and can create your own Web pages, making the move to your own business Web site may cost only $100 or less.

Getting Started

Step 1: Identify A Need

The best of anything hasn’t even been done yet, and someday someone is going to invent a better Wal-Mart, and there’s going to be a bigger and better store. As the technology changes, someone is going to create a business online that makes people say, ‘Wow, that’s cool.’”

Your first job, is to get in touch with your market (the people who’ll be buying your product or using your services) and determine how you can best meet its needs. After all, you can’t expect Web surfers to visit your online business unless you identify services or items that they really need.

Some of the best places to find out about what people want is to visit newsgroups, chat rooms, and bulletin boards where individuals gather and exchange messages online. Visiting discussion forums devoted to topics that interest you personally can be especially helpful, and you’re likely to end up participating. Also visit commerce Web sites, such as eBay, Amazon.com, or other online marketplaces, and take note of ideas and approaches that you may want to use.

Warrior Forum is one of the best internet forums, I suggest putting them at the top of your list.

Take A Look Around

The more information you have about the “two Cs” of the online world, the more likely you are to succeed in doing business online:

Competitors: Familiarize yourself with other online businesses that already do what you want to do. Don’t let their presence intimidate you. You’re going to find a different and better way to do what they already do.

Customers: Investigate the various kinds of customers who shop online and who might possibly visit your site.

As you look around the Internet, notice the kinds of goods and services that tend to sell in the increasingly crowded online world. The things that sell best in cyberspace include four Cs:

Cheap: Online items tend to be sold at a deep discount — at least, that’s what shoppers want and expect.

Convenient: Shoppers are looking for items that are easier to buy online than at a “real” store, such as a rare book that you can order in minutes from Amazon.com (www.amazon.com), or an electronic greeting card that you can send online in seconds (www.greeting-cards.com).

Customized: Anything that’s personalized, tailor-made, hard-to-find, or unique sells very well online.

Content-rich: Consumers go online to quickly read news stories that are available by subscription, such as newspapers and magazines, or that exist online only, such as Web logs (blogs) and electronic publications (ezines).

Visit one of the tried-and-true indexes to the Internet, such as Google (www.google.com), or Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com). Enter a word or phrase in the site’s home page search box that describes the kinds of goods or services you want to provide online. Find out how many existing businesses already do what you want to do. Better yet, determine what they don’t do, and set a goal of meeting that specialized need yourself. You need to create a niche!

Step 2: Determine What You Have To Offer

What Your Customers Want

Business is all about identifying customers’ needs and figuring out exactly what goods or services you’re going to provide to meet those needs. It’s the same both online and off.

To determine what you have to offer, make a list of all the items you have to sell, or all the services that you plan to provide to your customers. Next, you need to decide not only what goods or services you can provide online, but also where you’re going to obtain them. Are you going to create sale items yourself? Are you going to purchase them from another supplier? Write down your ideas on paper and keep them close at hand as you develop your business plan.

Step 3: Draw Up A Business Plan

Draw Up A Business Plan

The process of setting goals and objectives and then designing strategies for attaining them is essential when starting a new business. What you end up with is called a business plan. A good business plan applies not only to the start-up phase, but also to a business’s day-to-day operation. It can also be instrumental in helping a small business obtain a bank loan.

To carry your plan into your daily operations, observe these suggestions:

Write a brief description of your company and what you hope to accomplish with it.

Draw up a marketing strategy. A good marketing strategy is key to your business success.

Keep track of your finances.

Entrepreneur.com offers 50 free business plans you can view for ideas on how to create your own.

Step 4: Set Up Shop

One of the great advantages of opening a store on the Internet rather than on Main Street is money — or rather, the lack of it. Instead of having to rent a space and set up furniture and fixtures, you can buy a domain name, sign up with a hosting service, create some Web pages, and get started with an investment of only a few hundred dollars, or less.

Find A Host For Your Website

Although doing business online means that you don’t have to rent space in a mall or open a real, physical store, you do have to set up a virtual space for your online business. You do so by creating a Web site and finding a company to host it. In cyberspace, your landlord is called a Web hosting service. A Web host is a company that, for a fee, makes your site available 24 hours a day by maintaining it on a special computer called a Web server.

EasyCGI Web Hosting – Offers shared hosting plans to fit any budget. 99.9% uptime, 30 day money back guarantee, and 24/7 support. Rates starting at $7.96 a month, good quality hosting at an affordable price.

Choosing Your Business Software

Choosing Your Business Software

Because you’re going to be in the business of information providing now, as well as information gathering, you need programs such as the following:

A Web page editor: These programs, which are also referred to as Web page creation tools or Web page authoring tools, make it easy for you to format text, add images, and design Web pages without having to master HTML.

The best web page creation program on the internet is Adobe Dreamweaver CS4. Click the link to download a free trial from Adobe.com (link goes directly to Dreamweaver download page). Or purchase the program by clicking here.

Graphics software: If you decide to create your business Web site yourself, rather than find someone to do it for you, you need a program that can help you draw or edit images that you want to include on your site.

One of the best graphics programs to get is Adobe Photoshop. Click the link to download a free trial from Adobe.com (link goes directly to Photoshop download page). Or purchase the program by clicking here.

Storefront software: You can purchase software that leads you through the process of creating a full-fledged online business and getting your pages on the Web.

Accounting programs: You can write your expenses and income on a sheet of paper. But it’s far more efficient to use software that acts as a spreadsheet, helps you with billing, and even calculates sales tax.

Step 5: Hire A Technical Expert

Hire A Technical Expert

Spending some money up front to hire professionals who can point you in the right direction can help you maintain an effective Web presence for years to come. Many businesspeople who usually work alone (myself included) hire knowledgeable individuals to do design or programming work that they would find impossible to tackle otherwise.

Don’t be reluctant to hire professional help in order to get your business online. The Web is full of development firms that perform several related functions: providing customers with Web access, helping to create Web sites, and hosting sites on their servers.

Read more about How to Start a Home Business – Getting Started Part 2

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And what exactly is this “magic potion” which will ensure on-line success?.

Imagine if you will what someone goes through when seeking a business on-line.

It is generally the same scenario, no matter who the person is. They will view the product offerings, get sucked into all the big gurus launches, and read and watch avidly about all the money they are going to earn. They purchase a product or program, then another, and another, and another. Sound familiar?

The programs on sale will most times show what one individual has done, with the suggestion that by simply following this or that video series, you too can enjoy the same success.

It is then regrettable that people find out to their personal cost that the reality of business life on-line is somewhat different to that being portrayed.

I once saw a video, which I had been asked to view by a friend, done by someone who had been charged by the U.S. Federal authorities at a very early age for hacking into various government computers.

This guy was literally a computer genius, but he was at least openly admitting what he had done. However, he was by implication suggesting that anyone could earn what he was earning simply by following the program he had put together. At that point, I ceased watching. I will not have my intelligence insulted in that way.

The opposite of this is a year of so back I saw another video of a very reputable internet marketer talking about how he had trained and mentored his cousin and explaining how much money the cousin was now earning as a result.

This relative, who had never done anything online prior to this, was now successful because he had been personally mentored by someone who knew what they were doing. This really grabbed my attention. One to one personal mentoring.

I have no doubt that anyone reading this is now fully with me.

Donald Trump is quoted as saying that he has only been as successful as he has because of the personal mentors he has had in his life, and if you can find the same thing in your life, then you also can enjoy whatever success you seek.

My experience shows me that irrespective of how experienced a person is, or how long they have been working on-line, finding a mentor is absolutely essential to also finding success.

Get yourself the business which suits you personally and financially, and then seek a personal mentor, one who will work personally with you. Put those two things together and success can be yours for the asking.

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Millions of people have online blogs. Blogging has become the preferred method to share your thoughts with the online community. As a communication tool, or just for fun, blog are great things to have. However, there are ways you can turn the entertaining blog pastime into a lot of money.

Making money with your blog is not a new idea. Some people run business blogs that talk about their industry, advertise their ecommerce website sales and specials, or do straight sales of products. There are five quick and easy methods to turn existing blog traffic into big money.

Method One: Adsense of PPC Advertising

Google Adsense and other PPC (pay per click) advertising services pay you a certain amount of money every time a person clicks on one of their links. After you sign up, the company will give you a small amount of code to copy and paste into your blog template. When people visit your blog and read about their favorite topic, they may decide to click on the Adsense or PPC ads. Each click earns you money.

Method Two: Affiliate Programs

With affiliate programs, you earn whenever someone clicks, signs up, or makes a purchase through your affiliate link. You can sell products on your blog through affiliate programs and earn a commission on each sale.

It is easy to include an affiliate link in your blog post. Writing a bit about the product or giving it a personal recommendation is a great way to earn with affiliate products.

Method Three: Product Sales

Besides selling products through affiliate programs, you can also sell other things through your blog. You can purchase products wholesale, use a drop-shipper, or sell handcrafted items through your blog. Posting about the product in your blog may get visitors excited about the product.

Method Four: Text Link Sales

If you have a good amount of blog traffic, you may be able to sell text advertising spot directly through your blog. There are also websites you can sign up with that match text advertisers with blogs of interest. You would be paid a sum of money to post text ads on your blog.

Method Five: Posting Blog Ads

Much like posting text ads, there are also companies that match bloggers up with companies and websites that want advertising posted on blogs. These ads usually include an entire blog post touting a product or service, or a “brought to you by” or “visit our sponsor” blurb at the end of a blog post. You will earn money with your blog by writing and placing these ads.

These five methods of blog monetization will have you making money with your blog in no time. Each one is easy to implement in an existing blog. Blogging is very popular on the internet today. If you are already blogging, you might as well make money with your blog as well!

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