Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Use This Great Way To Generate More Leads For Your Online Business

So you just started a business selling widgets, unfortunately your biggest competitor is considered the Nike of the industry. Wild imaginations of your fierce competition using their billion dollar budget to make sure you can`t compete with them, begin to surface.

In steps the Internet. The medium by which all companies are equal...well somewhat. What the Internet will do is give you an equal balance of power to reach a global audience. The same exact global audience as your competitor.

So how do you reach a global audience on a limited budget? Very simple, become your own product critic and create a blog. Unless you have been hiding in a closet, you probably already know what a blog is. Blog, short for web log, is a means by which anyone can post information on the Internet, in real time. Visitors to your blog get to see what you have posted, starting with the most recent posts first.

Without going into intricate detail about the history of blogging, I can tell you that it is a great way to build your business. The reason why blogging will be good for your business is because search engines love content. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo! need to index web sites in order the create search results based on keywords. The more content you can offer them, the more often and higher your web site will appear on search results.

What makes blogging add even more content is the ability to allow your blog visitors to add comments or ask questions related to the blog content that you wrote.

Let me give you an example of how all of this works. You sell widgets, and are very knowledgable about what you sell You decide to start a blog rating differnet widgets, talking about the pros and cons of them, different styles they come in and so on. Now you allow your visitors to comment on your rating, and ask questions so you can answer, and guess what, that creates even more content.

Now people on the internet search for widgets, specifically looking for what you have already talked about in your blog. The visitor to your blog reads what you wrote, and sees that you are very knowledgable about the subject. Therefore they decide to shop with your site as opposed to your competition.

This is a common practice among a lot of companies that do business on the Internet. Obviously the first question that probably comes to mind is, whouldn`t the big competition just do this as well? Not exactly. They have huge budgets, mostly geared toward running marketing and advertising campaigns. They might post reviews of products on their sites, but rarely write a blog on what they sell. It is easier for them to just advertise.

Blogging is a great way to get the word out about your products and business. With the variety of blogging add-on tools for web sites and businesses, you do not even need a lot of web development experience to get started. Throw in some links from your blog posting to other websites such as Digg and Newsvine to name a couple, to allow your visitors to promote your blog posting for you, and you will be receiving customers in no time.



By: Bruce A. Tucker

Bruce A. Tucker is the Associate Director of http://www.Indocquent.com, an online resource that allows businesses and individuals to post their products and services for sale in 20,000 cities throughout 200 countries around the world. If you have a Blog and want to learn more about how you can earn extra income with Indocquent`s, Promos by IDQ campaign, visit their website at http://www.indocquent.com/index_files/promosbyidq.htm.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Using Viral Marketing to Propel Your Online Business

As far as I’m concerned personally, any chance you have to get traffic virally, build your list virally, or distribute an ebook or software which can have viral elements you should be doing it.

The most popular and famous example of viral marketing was Hotmail. By placing a link at the bottom of their emails for anybody else to get their program created an overnight phenomenon. Day after day, there were thousands of more people signing up for Hotmail accounts. I don’t know what the count is these days but it’s in the millions. And the rights to Hotmail was sold for millions of dollars.

Recently, I visited a blog by a very good blogger named Jay. Jay was saying on his site, that he didn’t use viral link cloakers and was also explaining why he didn’t use them. Some of his reasoning was that, with many viral link cloakers they have a portion of the program that does build a list inside the site for you. Jay was stating that that sort of list that is inside a viral cloaking site isn’t really targeted at all. And you know what? He’s right! He’s right because many of the people that may be in your downline may not be in your niche at all. These people signed up through your reference to the site perhaps, but, I’m sure many of them did it for their own reasons of building their business, but they might be in the “no smoking” niche for all we know. Why would they want to receive emails from another guy that would perhaps be in the “food” niche etc.

I replied to Jay’s post because I knew that the method I’m using viral link cloaking for is entirely different. I told Jay that, for one, I have never emailed my downline in a viral link cloaking and tracking site. The reason I use viral link cloakers is because it gets my ads shown on hundreds of other sites. When my ads are clicked they are interested in the headline of my ad, then taken to a squeeze page of one of my free reports and then people opt-in to my real list! Jay agreed, stating that, yes, I can see if you use them that way it would benefit you. And it does! I enjoy new signups for my list everyday because of this method.

Most readers of my blog know I’m a huge advocate for Viral Spiral. Heck, I must be, I liked the program so much I jumped at the chance to work for Tim Brocklehurst. Not only did I love the system he created, but it also meant I could learn a thing or two from one of the people I considered a heavy influence on me. I’m actually learning a lot from him without even asking much of the time. So it worked out real great!

The type of list you build inside a Viral Spiral site isn’t the type that you build inside one of these viral link cloaking systems either. It is targeted to people in your niche. Why? Well, it’s because you supply all of the members of your site with your squeeze pages and re-brandable books, so they can build their own lists. By you having control of the squeeze pages and ebooks supplied your guaranteed everybody that joins your site signed up because they were interested in receiving your books, or software etc. So yes, it is targeted, more benefit for you and all of the members building inside your site!

Viral marketing solutions provide a great way of getting a non-stop flow of traffic to your offers. Use the systems consistently and long term and holy crap, in some time your traffic will get amazing.

My solution in using them for list building is pretty straight forward really.

I’ve been using Viral Link Tracker to drive traffic to ads, which are shown consistently on other peoples sites. The more I use it, the more ads are shown. The more people that use it below me, earns me more ads being shown. So guess what is in my ads? These ads are all pointing towards my squeeze pages. So using these ads across a huge network is building my list for me!

I also did upgrade my membership with Viral Link Tracker because it will allow me to have the power of more levels of sub-users earning me more ads. It just builds bigger, and bigger, it’s endless….seeing the power yet?

One of the last viral strategies that has to be mentioned is viral software.

I remember a while back Ewen Chia came out with My Free Website Builder. My Free Website Builder is basically NVU. But Ewen, in his ingenuity, came up with the idea to create a bit of a different interface for it with links pointing to his websites or different programs that he has developed and what not. He sent it out to his thousands of subscribers for free, and gave everybody permission to give it to all of their friends too. Hmmm, now why would he do that?

Well, viral, viral, viral…. every time somebody gives it away with his links in it, he’s getting traffic from all of those people, and then from all of the people that they give it to, and so on, and so on….once again endlessly!

I recently came across one such softwares that allowed me to re-brand it with any links I wanted.

Guess who I heard about it from? Ewen Chia of course. I re-branded it with links pointing back to some of the websites that I wanted to receive more traffic to. By giving this away, traffic will be coming in for years to come.

It was really inexpensive to do all this, and once re-branded, you can do whatever you want to with the software. You can sell it, or you can just give it away. Whatever you want really. I suggest that you let anybody that gets it from you either by paying for it or for free, you allow them to give it away as well. Hence, your viral traffic will start to happen again, in a whole other stream of flow.



By : Davin Ogden

Davin Ogden has various websites on the internet. He is also an affiliate manager for Tim Brocklehurst. He specializes in viral marketing tactics to help people with their online success. His helpful blog is at http://www.luvcomputers.com/blog/ If you would like to download a FREE ebook and discover a powerful viral list building system owned by Holly Mann and Davin, just go to http://www.davinatorbiz.com/honestbrands/ .

Monday, November 3, 2008

Protecting Your Privacy And Your Online Business

Working at home and starting a home-based internet business is the dream of many men and women from all walks of life. Across America and around the world countless numbers of these people are turning their dream into a reality. There are certain challenges however that often come back to haunt the would be e-entrepreneur that they never gave much thought to at the beginning of their venture. One of those is one of the most important potential problems of today and the future. That is the issue of identity theft.

When you are operating an online business, you spend many hours on your computer doing the things necessary to build your business. Quite frequently this requires you to do business with and/or contract with other companies for various reasons. This can sometimes open you up to exposing yourself to privacy issues. At the end of this article, I will reveal to you probably the best step you can take to securing your identity.

An identity thief takes your personal information and uses it without your knowledge. The thief may run up debts or even commit crimes in your name. These 10 tips can help you lower your risk of becoming a victim.

1. Protect your Social Security Number

Don’t carry your Social Security Card in your wallet. If a company you do business with wants to use your SS# as your account number or id number, ask them to use another number. Protecting your Social Security number is the key to controlling identity theft.

2. Don’t let your identity get trashed

Own a paper/document shredder as part of your business. Shred or tear up papers with your personal information on them before you throw them away. Shred credit card offers and other mail you receive that might have your personal private information on them.

3. Use caution when clicking around the Internet

Before entering credit card or other personal information on any web site(especially if you are new to it), read their privacy policy. See what your opportunities are to opt out of sharing your information. IF there is no privacy policy posted, BEWARE!. Do business somewhere else. When you do enter personal information, enter it on secure Web pages with “https” in the address bar and a padlock symbol at the bottom of your browser. These signs indicated protection from hackers.

4. Don’t fall for “Phishing”!

Scam artists disguise themselves as legitimate businesses that you do business with like your bank, stores, eBay, Paypal, government agencies and such. Tactics include phone calls, emails, regular mail, and others asking you to verify personal information like account numbers and passwords. Don’t respond unless you initiated the contact. Legit companies do not ask for this sort of information in these ways.

5. Control your personal financial information

Limit where you can, the sharing of your information between companies and/or their affiliates.

6. Opt-out of pre-approved credit card offers

Many pre-approved credit card offers are simply ploys to make your information an easy target to gather.

7. Check your bills and statements

Open these items when you receive them in the mail. Reconcile right away and look carefully for any unauthorized charges or withdrawals. If you don’t receive these in the mail, call to find out why in case anyone has changed your contact information.

8. Protect your computer

Computer viruses and spyware can compromise your privacy. Use the appropriate security software. Make your passwords difficult for others to guess. Don’t click on links in spam email.

9. Check your credit report

This is one of the best ways to protect yourself. Monitor your credit history. You can get a FREE credit report every year from each of the three national credit bureaus.

10. Ask Why

Whenever information is requested from you that seems inappropriate for the transaction you are making, ask questions. Ask how the information is going to be used and if it will be shared. Move on if you feel the answers are unsatisfactory.

Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in America. It’s wise and prudent to take steps to protect yourself when you are an online business owner spending so much time online. A great way to protect your good name and your identity from being stolen is with a fantastic company called Lifelock. They’ll even give you a Million Dollar Service Guarantee.

Quite simply, using Lifelock is absolutely the best way to protect yourself from identity theft BEFORE it happens.

If you decide to take this important step toward protecting your identity and good name, here’s how you can save a little money on Lifelock’s already low service pricing. At the appropriate point when prompted for a “PROMO CODE”, enter the promo code LOCKSAFE. By entering “locksafe”, you’ll receive a 10% service discount from Lifelock that I have negotiated for all my readers.

Get all the details at http://www.Lifelock.com .

Identity theft can happen to anyone, anytime and anywhere. It can happen online or offline. Take the logical steps to protect yourself and rest assured that you have properly protected your reputation and the reputation of your business online and off.



By : Todd Thomas

Todd Thomas is the President of http://WorkAtHomeForDummies.com!- http://www.workathomefordummies.com and writes business related articles ranging from internet business to network marketing and everything in between. Todd is also a baseball coach and hitting instructor. He owns http://www.HitItHere.net. Contact at support@workathomefordummies.com for info on articles for your website!

Protecting Your Privacy And Your Online Business

Working at home and starting a home-based internet business is the dream of many men and women from all walks of life. Across America and around the world countless numbers of these people are turning their dream into a reality. There are certain challenges however that often come back to haunt the would be e-entrepreneur that they never gave much thought to at the beginning of their venture. One of those is one of the most important potential problems of today and the future. That is the issue of identity theft.

When you are operating an online business, you spend many hours on your computer doing the things necessary to build your business. Quite frequently this requires you to do business with and/or contract with other companies for various reasons. This can sometimes open you up to exposing yourself to privacy issues. At the end of this article, I will reveal to you probably the best step you can take to securing your identity.

An identity thief takes your personal information and uses it without your knowledge. The thief may run up debts or even commit crimes in your name. These 10 tips can help you lower your risk of becoming a victim.

1. Protect your Social Security Number

Don’t carry your Social Security Card in your wallet. If a company you do business with wants to use your SS# as your account number or id number, ask them to use another number. Protecting your Social Security number is the key to controlling identity theft.

2. Don’t let your identity get trashed

Own a paper/document shredder as part of your business. Shred or tear up papers with your personal information on them before you throw them away. Shred credit card offers and other mail you receive that might have your personal private information on them.

3. Use caution when clicking around the Internet

Before entering credit card or other personal information on any web site(especially if you are new to it), read their privacy policy. See what your opportunities are to opt out of sharing your information. IF there is no privacy policy posted, BEWARE!. Do business somewhere else. When you do enter personal information, enter it on secure Web pages with “https” in the address bar and a padlock symbol at the bottom of your browser. These signs indicated protection from hackers.

4. Don’t fall for “Phishing”!

Scam artists disguise themselves as legitimate businesses that you do business with like your bank, stores, eBay, Paypal, government agencies and such. Tactics include phone calls, emails, regular mail, and others asking you to verify personal information like account numbers and passwords. Don’t respond unless you initiated the contact. Legit companies do not ask for this sort of information in these ways.

5. Control your personal financial information

Limit where you can, the sharing of your information between companies and/or their affiliates.

6. Opt-out of pre-approved credit card offers

Many pre-approved credit card offers are simply ploys to make your information an easy target to gather.

7. Check your bills and statements

Open these items when you receive them in the mail. Reconcile right away and look carefully for any unauthorized charges or withdrawals. If you don’t receive these in the mail, call to find out why in case anyone has changed your contact information.

8. Protect your computer

Computer viruses and spyware can compromise your privacy. Use the appropriate security software. Make your passwords difficult for others to guess. Don’t click on links in spam email.

9. Check your credit report

This is one of the best ways to protect yourself. Monitor your credit history. You can get a FREE credit report every year from each of the three national credit bureaus.

10. Ask Why

Whenever information is requested from you that seems inappropriate for the transaction you are making, ask questions. Ask how the information is going to be used and if it will be shared. Move on if you feel the answers are unsatisfactory.

Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in America. It’s wise and prudent to take steps to protect yourself when you are an online business owner spending so much time online. A great way to protect your good name and your identity from being stolen is with a fantastic company called Lifelock. They’ll even give you a Million Dollar Service Guarantee.

Quite simply, using Lifelock is absolutely the best way to protect yourself from identity theft BEFORE it happens.

If you decide to take this important step toward protecting your identity and good name, here’s how you can save a little money on Lifelock’s already low service pricing. At the appropriate point when prompted for a “PROMO CODE”, enter the promo code LOCKSAFE. By entering “locksafe”, you’ll receive a 10% service discount from Lifelock that I have negotiated for all my readers.

Get all the details at http://www.Lifelock.com .

Identity theft can happen to anyone, anytime and anywhere. It can happen online or offline. Take the logical steps to protect yourself and rest assured that you have properly protected your reputation and the reputation of your business online and off.



By : Todd Thomas

Todd Thomas is the President of http://WorkAtHomeForDummies.com!- http://www.workathomefordummies.com and writes business related articles ranging from internet business to network marketing and everything in between. Todd is also a baseball coach and hitting instructor. He owns http://www.HitItHere.net. Contact at support@workathomefordummies.com for info on articles for your website!

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