Why There's Never Been a Better Time
to Start Your Home Business
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Why There's Never Been a Better Time
to Start Your Home Business... and the Top 5 Strategies and Cool
Tools You Need to Know About.
I was surprised to hear at a recent seminar how many people think
that the Internet is just too saturated for new online home business
owners to be successful -- and that if you didn't get in on the
ground floor, you're out of luck.
Well, we did get in on the ground floor, and we've seen all the
changes, so I can tell you this: Nothing could be further from
the truth! That's why I wanted to write this article to show
you why NOW is probably the best time in Internet history to start
a wildly profitable online business.
Sure, there's more competition on the 'Net these days. When we
first opened our doors in 1998, there were only 130 million web
pages in existence... now there are well over 313 billion (eMarketer)!
But there are also a LOT more potential customers online, too --
1,022,863,307 of them in fact! (Neilson/Net ratings March 2006.)
And if online sales are any indication, the number of people who
are actively shopping online is also on the rise. According to Forrester
Research, online sales reached a staggering $172 billion
in 2005 -- a number they predict will rise to $329
billion by 2010!
New technologies and crazy new tools have opened up worlds of opportunity
that make it easier -- and cheaper -- than ever to start an online
business and immediately start profiting.
Through it all, the core principles of Internet marketing have
remained essentially unchanged -- but now they've been tested, tweaked,
and honed to peak effectiveness.
Let's start by looking at how the cornerstones of Internet marketing
have evolved since we opened our doors in 1998...
#1: Depend on the tried and tested
essentials of Internet marketing
These key strategies for marketing your business online have always
been effective, but are now much easier to apply. Things like...
- Designing a web site that sells: As in the
early days of the 'Net, your web site needs to have clear navigation
and a good sales process to be effective; however, it's now much
more important for your site to look professional. Today's web
surfers have clear expectations of how a commercial web site should
look and perform. Luckily, new tools and resources, such as the
free web-building software Nvu,
make it a breeze for you to create a good-looking, fully functioning
business web site.
- Discovering a profitable niche market: Providing
a solution to a problem for a narrowly-defined niche market is
still extremely important -- maybe even more so with the increased
competition. But now, advanced tools such as Yahoo!
Search Marketing's Keyword Selector Tool and
Wordtracker
can help you pinpoint exactly who your market is and what they're
hungry for.
- Multiplying your profits with additional income streams:
If you want to pile profit on top of profit, combine several revenue
streams. The host of e-commerce opportunities that are now available
mean that you have an almost limitless selection of these profit-boosters:
from moving merchandise on eBay to creating free web pages with Google pages that will
be quickly indexed by the search engines, to selling on-demand
merchandise on sites such as CafePress.com.
- Expanding your reach -- and profits! -- with an affiliate
program: An affiliate program can still ramp up your
income while exposing your site to a wider audience. But instead
of recruiting an "army" of affiliates, these days it's more important
to attract "super affiliates" to your program -- a few affiliates
who will be responsible for generating the bulk of your sales.
These superstars can be attracted by a generous commission structure
and payouts for sales generated long after an affiliate's referral.
And software like AssocTRAC
helps you automate your program for almost hands-free affiliate
management.
Of course, some areas of Internet marketing have changed more than
others since our first course made its debut in 1998. Let's take
a look at some of them... and the tremendous opportunities they
offer.
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Disclaimer: The information presented and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors
and do not necessarily represent the views of Work-at-Home-Business.com and/or its partners.
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