Posted by Daniel on June 2, 2010 under Online Business, Working At Home | 
Many people dream of having their own home-based online business. I have been working online from home for the past four years and I would hate to go back to a regular office job. But how do you know if an online business is right for you?
Here are several questions to help you determine if you are ready for an online business working from home.
1. Can You Drive Yourself?
Self-motivation. Discipline. Determination. Perseverance. You might have heard these words a dozen times, but how do you really measure up against them? When you work online from home, there is no place to punch in to prove that you arrived at work on time. There is no boss looking over your shoulder and nobody to set targets for you and push you towards them.
If you want to succeed with an online business I can promise you that you will need to work very hard for the first couple of years. So be honest, do you have the strength and the determination to make a real go of this, and to drive yourself to succeed with your online business?
2. Do You Have Any Online Business Experience?
If you do not have any online business experience, don’t despair. You can still start a business working from home, however if you have no experience you should start by doing it part-time. Start to build your online business in your spare time, in the evenings and on weekends. Online businesses are perfect for this. Do not give up your full-time job until you gain some first-hand online business experience and prove to yourself that you are actually able to earn some revenue through this business.
3. Do You Have Any Additional Savings?
This is a very important question if you are considering leaving your regular job to work online from home. It takes time to build up an online business and I recommend that you should have at least 6 months salary saved up in reserve.
I can promise you that a work from home lifestyle becomes less attractive very quickly when you’re hungry and cannot pay your bills.
4. Do You Prefer Getting Out Of Home?
Come on, be absolutely honest. After all, this is your future happiness you are considering. You see, as much they might dream of having a freelance lifestyle there are many people who simply would not be happy if they were stuck at home all day.
Does your wife or husband drive you up the wall when you spend too many hours together? Then how are you going to survive working from home all day?
I do not want to get into relationship issues and solutions here, but for the sake of your business, and probably your home relationships too, take a long hard look at the reality of your home life before you quit your full-time job and start spending most of every day at home.
How did you do on those questions? Did you pass with flying colors? Well, an online home-based business may be just right for you.
Posted by Daniel on May 29, 2010 under Ebook Business, Online Business |
Many people who work online are now getting into the ebook business, and it is a solid business idea.
Not convinced?
In May 2010 the AAP – Association of American Publishers – announced that ebook sales rose yet again in the first quarter of the year – up 252%. This has been happening quarter after quarter and it reinforces the fact that the ebook industry is booming. And here are some more reasons why you should sell ebooks.
Some of the advantages of an ebook business are the low costs to produce and store ebooks, low shipping costs, and you can sell your ebooks via online stores that remain open 24 hours, 7 days a week. This is truly a business which can operate like clockwork, taking orders even while you are taking a break.
But there are multiple ways of marketing ebooks. Let’s look at some of these.
1. Write And Sell Ebooks
With the right information anyone can write an ebook themselves. By selling your own ebooks you get to retain all of the profits. Your main costs will be the time you spend while researching and writing ebooks. As soon as you start selling your ebooks you have almost no outgoing costs except for hosting and payment processing fees.
2. Sell Other People’s Ebooks and Pay Royalties
If you already have a web site or blog you can offer to sell other authors’ ebooks through the site. It is normal to pay a royalty to the author, for example 40% of the revenue from each copy.
3. Sell Ebooks with Resale Rights
If you search online for ebooks with Resell Rights, then you will find hundreds of ebooks on all kinds of topics available. When you purchase the ebook with Resell Rights you have the copyright owner’s permission to sell the ebook through your site and keep all of the income.
4. Use Ebooks with Private Label Rights
If you look for ebooks with PLR or Private Label Rights then you have even greater flexibility. With PLR rights you can represent the ebook as your own and typically you can also edit it, split or repackage the material, and even publish it under a new title.
These are just a few of the techniques employed for incorporating ebooks into an online business.
Posted by Daniel on December 17, 2008 under Advertising, Affiliate Marketing, Article Marketing, Pay-Per-Click, Social Networking, Viral Marketing, Web Traffic |
There’s sometimes a lot of hype surrounding how you can get Google AdWords traffic more cheaply. And I know people who have spent a lot of money on a guide from a so-called marketing guru only to discover that the amazing traffic techniques were really not so incredible at all.
Leaving the hype aside, here are four ‘down-to-earth’ techniques that will enable you to obtain cheaper traffic from almost any of your Google AdWords campaign.
1. Combine an Increase in Keywords with a Lower Bid
One of the best ways to get more traffic from your Google AdWords campaigns is to add more keyword phrases in conjunction with lowering your pay-per-click bids. By doing this you can end up drive much more traffic through your campaign at a lower price per visitor.
Make sure that the new keyword phrases you add are still very relevant. I bet you can still find plenty more relevant keywords if you think carefully. Many advertisers initially set up a new campaign with a bunch of keywords to test it out, and then they forget to come back later and add more relevant keyword phrases. You can find many more relevant keywords using the free software, Good Keywords, or even Google’s own Keyword Tool. I like Good Keywords’ Phrase Builder as it enables you to build lists of hundreds of keyword phrases in seconds.
2. Use Phrase or Narrow Match
Try using phrase match or narrow match for your keyword phrases. The reason you should try this is that narrower keyword phrases do not always trigger the same minimum bids at AdWords and therefore you can get traffic cheaper.
Often when I’ve been unwilling to pay the minimum bid on broad match for a keyword phrase, I have been able to get it showing quickly by using phrase or narrow match.
The best thing about this technique is that your traffic is will be even more targeted because of the matching so it will most likely convert better, and all the time it costs you less than the broad match would have
To add a keyword phrase with phrase matching put quotes around it like this:
“keyword phrase”
To add a keyword phrase with narrow matching put brackets around it like this:
[keyword phrase]
3. Advertise in Other Countries
North America is an excellent geographical target area for many campaigns, but it also very much more competitive to get traffic when compared to other regions. Try targeting a few other countries that may be interested in your product or service. I can think of one particular campaign where I simply cannot get North American traffic for under $0.05 per click, yet I still get loads of traffic from parts of Europe for $0.01 per click.
4. Use a Keyword Research Tool
If you spend a considerable amount on pay-per-click advertising you should really be using a professional keyword research tool. A good keyword tool like Keyword Elite will enable you to quickly research good keyword phrases that have less competition.
And less competition means you will pay less for your traffic if you bid on those keywords.
There you go. Four ways that you can get more traffic from Google AdWords at a lower cost per click. Try it and watch your advertising campaigns become more profitable.
