Billions of dollars worth of products are sold on eBay and other online merchants every year.Where are people getting all these items to sell? Surely, they’ve emptied their closets and garages by now.Even if they have, finding stuff to sell online is still relatively easy. Several sources are available for those who want to make a little or a lot of cash selling online.
Home Stuff:
Not all garages have been cleared of junk.Weekend garage sales are still popular places to find items to sell. Sales in higher income areas tend to net more quality items like designer clothes, high end furniture, and antiques.However, don’t neglect an average Joe garage sale; one never knows what unique items will be unearthed regardless of the neighborhood.Go to these sales toward the end of the day.Homeowners will be more inclined to sell you merchandise at rock bottom prices rather than having to pack up unsold items.
Look through your own garage and closets to find items to sell online.You may be harboring old clothes, books, Cds, and toys that will bring in a few bucks online. Offer to rid your friends and family of their unwanted junk by selling on consignment.You sell their stuff and keep %25 of the profits.Local retailers may also agree to let you sell their overstocks and returned merchandise on consignment as well.
Buy Online, Sell Online:
Finding stuff to sell online is as easy as buying it from the same online source. eBay is an excellent place to find everything from antiques to huge lots of merchandise that you can buy and resell at a profit.
Locate other online sources by using search terms such as wholesale liquidators, closeout dealers, and drop-ship services.These same sources can also be found in print media including the Yellow Pages and classified ads in newspapers, trade magazines, and free weeklies.
Auction Action:
Unclaimed, slightly damaged, and repossessed merchandise can be purchased at freight claims and government auctions.Check the Yellow Pages for contact information and newspaper classified section for upcoming sales.
There’s a storage unit operation on every corner these days.The storage company auctions off the contents of unpaid rental units.Although the contents are sold sight unseen, there’s probably enough sale worthy items inside to let you break even.
Estate auctions are another great source for finding stuff to sell online.Like garage sales, high income estates yield the greatest finds, but gems can be found regardless of the estate’s net worth.These sales are advertised in the newspaper.
Drop Shipping:
Drop shipping is an easy, hands off way to sell online.You send the order to the manufacturer or distributor and they ship the product to the customer.No inventory or shipping hassles to worry about.
Local Events:
Bazaars, flea markets, and festivals are good sources for everything from unique handmade crafts to valuable collectibles.Like garage sales, stop by near closing time for deep discounted deals.
Check with the local convention and visitors’ bureau to find out about upcoming trade shows that are open to the public.You’ll be able to buy from manufacturers and sale reps selling the latest products on the market.
Offshore Action:
Asia is a good source for finding stuff to sell online. However, the red tape and cost of contacting sources there can be a hassle.Your best bet is to hook up with a manufacturer’s rep who has overseas connections. There’s enough available home grown sources for locating products to sell to make this option unnecessary.
Showing posts with label earn money. Show all posts
Showing posts with label earn money. Show all posts
5/2/09
What Should I Sell Online?
Everyone who starts an ebiz faces the question: What do I sell? And most everyone seems to make two classic mistakes in the beginning:
They try to sell what everyone else is selling: DVDs, electronics and designer clothing. The problem they encounter is that the market is already saturated with these products and the suppliers typically do not work in small quantity. To make any profit at all, they'd have to buy huge quantities.
They try to sell what they know and love. Unfortunately, unless there is a significant demand for what they know and love, they are going to be stuck with a lot of product they can appreciate but can't move.
What's an IDEA HOTSPOT?
Lisa Suttora of Whatdoisell.com coined the term "idea hotspot" to refer to anything, any place or person that "provide[s] you with an unending source of new product ideas, of market trends, of developing niches and product line education?It is a fertile ground for product ideas." These hotspots keep you in touch with what people are buying, what things are up-and-coming, and what things are on their way out. If your ideas all come from one or two places, you are limiting yourself. Expand your thinking? You might consider looking at one of these "hotspots" for inspiration:
Newspapers. You can get an idea of what is on the minds of consumers by simply reading the lifestyle section, the business section, or looking at the advertisements the big stores are putting out.
Consumer Publications. There are hundreds of magazines designed around niche products, niche hobbies and niche markets. They are a terrific resource for building niche product lines.
Malls/brick-and-mortar stores. Talk to the salespeople, find out what is selling. You can even source your suppliers off the boxes. Get the manufacturer's name, call them up, and ask who their local distributor is in your area.
Trend-spotting websites, such as Trendwatching.com, Influxinsights.com and Trendhunter.com.
The entertainment industry, movies and TV drive product trends. If you know what is coming out in the movie industry, you can start sourcing related products before the trend begins. Imdb.com maintains a list of movies that are going to be released in the coming year. So if you know now that a particular movie is going to be coming out, you can start stocking up on relevant products before they become pricey, such as Batman, Superman, Curious George and Star Wars.
Write It Down
Suttora strongly suggests carrying a product sourcing notebook, be it a PDA or hand-held notebook, to keep track of your ideas as they come. She warns, "Ninety percent of ideas that you don't write down will get lost. When you're at these idea hotspots, if you see a hundred ideas for products to sell, you won't be able to remember those. You've got to write them down in your product sourcing notebook and then go back and start researching them."
They try to sell what everyone else is selling: DVDs, electronics and designer clothing. The problem they encounter is that the market is already saturated with these products and the suppliers typically do not work in small quantity. To make any profit at all, they'd have to buy huge quantities.
They try to sell what they know and love. Unfortunately, unless there is a significant demand for what they know and love, they are going to be stuck with a lot of product they can appreciate but can't move.
What's an IDEA HOTSPOT?
Lisa Suttora of Whatdoisell.com coined the term "idea hotspot" to refer to anything, any place or person that "provide[s] you with an unending source of new product ideas, of market trends, of developing niches and product line education?It is a fertile ground for product ideas." These hotspots keep you in touch with what people are buying, what things are up-and-coming, and what things are on their way out. If your ideas all come from one or two places, you are limiting yourself. Expand your thinking? You might consider looking at one of these "hotspots" for inspiration:
Newspapers. You can get an idea of what is on the minds of consumers by simply reading the lifestyle section, the business section, or looking at the advertisements the big stores are putting out.
Consumer Publications. There are hundreds of magazines designed around niche products, niche hobbies and niche markets. They are a terrific resource for building niche product lines.
Malls/brick-and-mortar stores. Talk to the salespeople, find out what is selling. You can even source your suppliers off the boxes. Get the manufacturer's name, call them up, and ask who their local distributor is in your area.
Trend-spotting websites, such as Trendwatching.com, Influxinsights.com and Trendhunter.com.
The entertainment industry, movies and TV drive product trends. If you know what is coming out in the movie industry, you can start sourcing related products before the trend begins. Imdb.com maintains a list of movies that are going to be released in the coming year. So if you know now that a particular movie is going to be coming out, you can start stocking up on relevant products before they become pricey, such as Batman, Superman, Curious George and Star Wars.
Write It Down
Suttora strongly suggests carrying a product sourcing notebook, be it a PDA or hand-held notebook, to keep track of your ideas as they come. She warns, "Ninety percent of ideas that you don't write down will get lost. When you're at these idea hotspots, if you see a hundred ideas for products to sell, you won't be able to remember those. You've got to write them down in your product sourcing notebook and then go back and start researching them."
How To Sell Things Online And Make Money
With your idea in mind, you decided to make money online. You have your domain name and a web hosting company to host your site. You have mapped out on paper what your site will look like. Now you want an angle to make money.
Some people jump into doing business on the web with a business they run offline hoping an international connection will make things better. These people can do quite well if they were already successful in the real world.
Others figure they would just wing their way into the Internet gold mine. Again, without a business plan you probably won't get too far.
If you don't have something to sell, you can't make money on the web. By simply being on the web does not guarantee the money will fall in your lap. You need a product and to give the buyers a reason to get it from you.
One easy way to come up with a product is to create your own. Information is the most inexpensive form of a product you can sell. In print form, you can sell a booklet, but have to figure in the cost of printing and mailing. In electronic form, it costs you nothing! However, some people would rather have something in writing to justify the fact that they spent something.
If you are not creative enough to come up with an informational book, you could make other products, but you will have to confirm what your local, state and federal laws would be concerning the product you have in mind.
If you want an easier route, consider a dropship dealer. In many cases they can print up catalogs in your name for you to distribute. You collect the orders, take out your share of the money and direct the rest of the money with the order to the dropship company. They process the orders you send them and ship to the customer. It is easy enough, but you also want to be sure about any policy they have about returned merchandise. You may have to hold on to the money you made until a clearing period passes.
Look through this list of companies and take your pick of what you wish to sell. Write these companies and ask them about their dropshipping program. It helps speed things up if you send a large SASE when you write them. Some of these businesses may no longer be around, so pick a few just in case. Dropship Companies.
After you figure out what you want to sell, you need to find a way to take payment. What are your options?
Of course the best option is to accept any and all forms of payments, but that is not practical in every situation, is the traditional merchant account. If you have only one item that is less than $10 and sell a few a month, it would be VERY risky to get a merchant account to accept credit cards.
Merchant accounts will let you take major credit cards and checks. Depending on what type of account you deal with, some will only allow Visa and Master Card, some just checks only, and others will take everything. They charge you according to your credit worthiness to make sure you will not rip off the customer or the company to pay your debts or that someone will put a lien on your assests. Unless you have perfect credit, expect to pay more. You can get these accounts starting at $50 a month and up to over $250 per month. Then there is the transaction charge ranging from 10¢ - 75¢. And they also take a percentage of your sale ranging from 1-10%.
So as you can see, they do take a fair amount out of what you would have considered your profit just for a transaction. If you make no sales, you still have to pay the monthly fee. So unless you can prove you will have a steady flow of ready buyers, having a merchant account is not always the best thing.
Don't be fooled by the ads that claim your business will increase by having the ability to accept cards with a merchant account. Unless you have a good sales pitch and a product people want and people coming to see your offer, a merchant account won't do you a bit of good. They are also not the only way to take card payments, but they do charge less for the service.
A merchant account will only suit you if you can supply the buying traffic. Before you shell out the big bucks for a traditional merchant's account, check to see if you have the buying traffic to support it.
Get a good statistics counter to see how many people are actually viewing your ad, where they came from, and how long they stayed. Most good web hosting companies will have an excellent traffic statistic counter to tell you the details of where your traffic originated and even search terms used to get to your site. If your web hosting company does not have a good statistic program, try Web Stat which is one of the best traffic counters around and only $9 a month, but you can try it free for 30 days to check your traffic levels.
If you offer payment by check, cash, or money order and you have at least 1% of your traffic buying what you sell, then it might work out when you accept credit cards. If people want something, they will stick money in the mail. Granted there are many impulsive people, there are also many who would rather mail a check or money order than to give credit card informtion online.
Of course, if you do not qualify for the traditional accounts, you have other options. Sign up for the PayPal merchant account program, ClickBank, or eBay. They allow you to sell whatever it is you are selling without having to go through the same hoops as a traditional merchant account.
Once you have a product and a means to collect payment, create a sales page. Use the basic rules of advertising. Keep your copy simple to read and easy to understand. Keep it short and to the point. Use words that are powerful. Create "white space" (don't crowd the screen with words or bog it down with pictures and keep a good margin space.) Use headlines, subheadlines, and bullet points to highlight the great points of your offer for those who are just skimming readers. Be sure to ask for the order. Be specific on how they are to get your product. Create a sense of urgency to buy your product now. Give them what they wanted and pile on goodies to make it impossible to refuse. Make sure your page will load fast. Unless you are selling music, DO NOT PUT MUSIC ON!
Try to advertise your site as much as possible through forums, newsgroups, and other places where you find people in the form of a signature tag which is a 1-2 line signature that can link to a site you own and is used at the end of your comments. Another way to advertise online is through classified ads such as Adland Classified Ads. Also consider offline forms of advertising such as newspapers, flyers, business cards and word of mouth.
When you create and launch your site, just be prepared to fill orders and handle your business. It is not easy, but it is not difficult either. You will not get rich overnight and this will take a lot of time to set up. Don't let the Don Lapre's of the world fool you. If you haven't noticed, this site has a lot more information on making money on the web than buying one of the infomercial products. And this advice is FREE.
Some people jump into doing business on the web with a business they run offline hoping an international connection will make things better. These people can do quite well if they were already successful in the real world.
Others figure they would just wing their way into the Internet gold mine. Again, without a business plan you probably won't get too far.
If you don't have something to sell, you can't make money on the web. By simply being on the web does not guarantee the money will fall in your lap. You need a product and to give the buyers a reason to get it from you.
One easy way to come up with a product is to create your own. Information is the most inexpensive form of a product you can sell. In print form, you can sell a booklet, but have to figure in the cost of printing and mailing. In electronic form, it costs you nothing! However, some people would rather have something in writing to justify the fact that they spent something.
If you are not creative enough to come up with an informational book, you could make other products, but you will have to confirm what your local, state and federal laws would be concerning the product you have in mind.
If you want an easier route, consider a dropship dealer. In many cases they can print up catalogs in your name for you to distribute. You collect the orders, take out your share of the money and direct the rest of the money with the order to the dropship company. They process the orders you send them and ship to the customer. It is easy enough, but you also want to be sure about any policy they have about returned merchandise. You may have to hold on to the money you made until a clearing period passes.
Look through this list of companies and take your pick of what you wish to sell. Write these companies and ask them about their dropshipping program. It helps speed things up if you send a large SASE when you write them. Some of these businesses may no longer be around, so pick a few just in case. Dropship Companies.
After you figure out what you want to sell, you need to find a way to take payment. What are your options?
Of course the best option is to accept any and all forms of payments, but that is not practical in every situation, is the traditional merchant account. If you have only one item that is less than $10 and sell a few a month, it would be VERY risky to get a merchant account to accept credit cards.
Merchant accounts will let you take major credit cards and checks. Depending on what type of account you deal with, some will only allow Visa and Master Card, some just checks only, and others will take everything. They charge you according to your credit worthiness to make sure you will not rip off the customer or the company to pay your debts or that someone will put a lien on your assests. Unless you have perfect credit, expect to pay more. You can get these accounts starting at $50 a month and up to over $250 per month. Then there is the transaction charge ranging from 10¢ - 75¢. And they also take a percentage of your sale ranging from 1-10%.
So as you can see, they do take a fair amount out of what you would have considered your profit just for a transaction. If you make no sales, you still have to pay the monthly fee. So unless you can prove you will have a steady flow of ready buyers, having a merchant account is not always the best thing.
Don't be fooled by the ads that claim your business will increase by having the ability to accept cards with a merchant account. Unless you have a good sales pitch and a product people want and people coming to see your offer, a merchant account won't do you a bit of good. They are also not the only way to take card payments, but they do charge less for the service.
A merchant account will only suit you if you can supply the buying traffic. Before you shell out the big bucks for a traditional merchant's account, check to see if you have the buying traffic to support it.
Get a good statistics counter to see how many people are actually viewing your ad, where they came from, and how long they stayed. Most good web hosting companies will have an excellent traffic statistic counter to tell you the details of where your traffic originated and even search terms used to get to your site. If your web hosting company does not have a good statistic program, try Web Stat which is one of the best traffic counters around and only $9 a month, but you can try it free for 30 days to check your traffic levels.
If you offer payment by check, cash, or money order and you have at least 1% of your traffic buying what you sell, then it might work out when you accept credit cards. If people want something, they will stick money in the mail. Granted there are many impulsive people, there are also many who would rather mail a check or money order than to give credit card informtion online.
Of course, if you do not qualify for the traditional accounts, you have other options. Sign up for the PayPal merchant account program, ClickBank, or eBay. They allow you to sell whatever it is you are selling without having to go through the same hoops as a traditional merchant account.
Once you have a product and a means to collect payment, create a sales page. Use the basic rules of advertising. Keep your copy simple to read and easy to understand. Keep it short and to the point. Use words that are powerful. Create "white space" (don't crowd the screen with words or bog it down with pictures and keep a good margin space.) Use headlines, subheadlines, and bullet points to highlight the great points of your offer for those who are just skimming readers. Be sure to ask for the order. Be specific on how they are to get your product. Create a sense of urgency to buy your product now. Give them what they wanted and pile on goodies to make it impossible to refuse. Make sure your page will load fast. Unless you are selling music, DO NOT PUT MUSIC ON!
Try to advertise your site as much as possible through forums, newsgroups, and other places where you find people in the form of a signature tag which is a 1-2 line signature that can link to a site you own and is used at the end of your comments. Another way to advertise online is through classified ads such as Adland Classified Ads. Also consider offline forms of advertising such as newspapers, flyers, business cards and word of mouth.
When you create and launch your site, just be prepared to fill orders and handle your business. It is not easy, but it is not difficult either. You will not get rich overnight and this will take a lot of time to set up. Don't let the Don Lapre's of the world fool you. If you haven't noticed, this site has a lot more information on making money on the web than buying one of the infomercial products. And this advice is FREE.
4/29/09
Start your Online Business from Scratch Make money from Zero
One advantage of doing business online is that you can start from scratch without investing much money. Here is the Action Plan to help you get started...
Please bookmark this blog and check other related posts for better understanding.
1. List 5 hobbies, interests or areas of expertise. If you want to start a new business, you'd better choose a subject that you like and a subject where you can show expertise. You will have more fun and you will be more competitive.
2. Brainstorm a list of keywords and phrases related to those hobbies and interests. For example, if you are going to sell small airplane collectibles, some possible keywords could be: airplanes, aeronautics, war airplanes, etc.
3. Research those keywords in Wordtracker.com to locate problem statements that have high search results and low competition. Wordtracker.com is a web page that helps you find out how many times your keywords are searched online, how popular your keywords on search engines are. Those keywords may represent problem statements. Wordtracker shows you how many people are buying traffic on those keywords and how much are they paying. You need to find popular statements with low competition.
4. Research those problem statements further to determine if you can develop a product to solve the problem stated. You may use search engines to see how many people are offering products that can help to solve those problems. If you find a popular problem and there are not many people offering solutions online, you've got it!
5. Find or create a product based on previous research for you to sell. Once you found a hungry market, you just need to find the food that your customers want and they will eat from your hands. You may find companies online that can manufacture the products for you or you may find a different way to create the product yourself. If the product is an e-book, you may write it yourself or you may hire someone else to do it.
6. Write a long copy sales letter for that product. The experience of the most important internet marketing gurus reveals that long copies sell much more than short copies. It is also recommendable that you try to sell only one product on your web site. Focus on one product unless the solution you are providing is the offer of a wide catalogue.
7. Register a domain and set up a hosting account. There are many places online where you can register a domain and set up a hosting account in minutes.
8. Register for a merchant account (to set up quickly use PayPal.com). If you don't want to register a merchant account that will allow you to take credit card payments online, go to PayPal.com and sign in. It can be a little bit more expensive, but it is a simple way to take credit card payments online very quickly.
9. Set up a simple web site using an automatic site builder or pay to have someone set it up for you. Do not try to design your own web site unless you are educated on html. Do not waste your time. Hire someone else to do it or buy automatic web site builder software. There are many of these you can buy online.
10. Set up an opt-in form on your web site to collect e-mail addresses. You need to start collecting e-mail addresses for your newsletter. The major part of your business will come from the emails that you will send to your customer list.
11. Build an extensive keyword list based on the initial list of keywords you developed. Use Overture.com. For each keyword on the initial list, Overture can help you find different combinations with other words that you may find interesting. Check the popularity of each term and write down on a spread sheet your final keyword list.
12. Submit those keywords to Overture.com to start driving traffic right away. You need to start driving some traffic immediately in order to test your web site. The best way to do that is to buy this traffic at overture.com
13. Optimize and submit your web site to organic search engines (Google, Altavista, etc...). Once you have proved that your web site works and sells, you will be ready to make the business bigger. It is then time to start working on building free traffic to your site.
14. Continue to test and tweak your web site until target conversion rate is met. Your conversion ratio should be that 1-2% of your visitors should buy from your web site, and 11% should subscribe to your newsletter. Continue testing until you get those stats.
15. Set up an affiliate program on your web site. Affiliate programs can double your business with no additional effort. Others will make the job for you. But you cannot set up an affiliate program before you are sure that your web site can produce results. If your site does not work, you will loose your affiliates and they will never come back to you again.
16. Approach complimentary web sites to sign up as affiliates to promote your product. Get in contact with people that can promote your product and ask them to be your affiliates. Just try to find your first 100 affiliates, and your affiliate list will boom alone.
17. Start publishing a monthly newsletter. You have started collecting e-mail addresses much earlier, but it is not the time to start working the newsletter until you can prove that everything else works.
18. Submit articles to related newsletters and e-zines on a regular basis. In the articles you should always have a link to your site, so that you can get more traffic and you can get more people joining to your newsletter.
19. Continue the development of a content rich web site to further increase search engine rankings. Search engines love content. You must have many web sites which are rich on your keywords and which have links to your main page. A good way to do this is to add as many articles as you can related to your business and link them to your home page.
20. Once keywords have been tested in Overture, roll out in Google Adwords. It works similar to Overture, you bid for traffic. But do not go to Google Adwords first. You must first prove your success with Overture and then go to Google Adwords.
21. Roll out tested keyword list in other major PPCs. When you are sure about your stats, and you know how much money you collect per visitor, you must buy as much traffic as you can get as far as your income per visitor is higher than your bids.
22. Create a viral e-book to generate more leads. Create a free e-book that you can promote and which sells your product or service. Give it for free, and this will bring more traffic to your web site.
23. Have an expert review and critique your web site. Even if your site works, you can always improve. Listen to others and learn from their experiences.
24. Survey your existing customers to find out what other products or services they are looking for. Once you have a big list of customers, use it to find out what other problems do they have. Try to find or create a solution for them and you will boost your sales instantaneously.
25. Create and find back-end products and market them through your e-mail list. Continue finding more products that meet your customer demands and promote them via e-mail.
26. Continue to test and tweak your web site and offers. Nothing is perfect the first time and can always be improved. It is very important that you take action, even if you make mistakes. Learn from your errors and improve your skills.
27. Repeat process to create "Multiple Streams of Income". Once your business is working on automation, then you can start the process again with a new business. Build as many businesses as you can, and reduce your risks. If one business fails, but you have another 5 working businesses, who cares about it?
If you have read up to this point, you are probably asking yourself how much it will cost to get started? The answer is very simple; it depends on how much time and money you have available to invest! If you have a lot of time, you can do everything yourself. On the other hand, if you don't have time, you will have to pay other people for building your website and/or for optimizing your site on search engines.
If you can do nothing else...just launch a web site and start promoting online...
1. List 5 hobbies, interests or areas of expertise. If you want to start a new business, you'd better choose a subject that you like and a subject where you can show expertise. You will have more fun and you will be more competitive.
2. Brainstorm a list of keywords and phrases related to those hobbies and interests. For example, if you are going to sell small airplane collectibles, some possible keywords could be: airplanes, aeronautics, war airplanes, etc.
3. Research those keywords in Wordtracker.com to locate problem statements that have high search results and low competition. Wordtracker.com is a web page that helps you find out how many times your keywords are searched online, how popular your keywords on search engines are. Those keywords may represent problem statements. Wordtracker shows you how many people are buying traffic on those keywords and how much are they paying. You need to find popular statements with low competition.
4. Research those problem statements further to determine if you can develop a product to solve the problem stated. You may use search engines to see how many people are offering products that can help to solve those problems. If you find a popular problem and there are not many people offering solutions online, you've got it!
5. Find or create a product based on previous research for you to sell. Once you found a hungry market, you just need to find the food that your customers want and they will eat from your hands. You may find companies online that can manufacture the products for you or you may find a different way to create the product yourself. If the product is an e-book, you may write it yourself or you may hire someone else to do it.
6. Write a long copy sales letter for that product. The experience of the most important internet marketing gurus reveals that long copies sell much more than short copies. It is also recommendable that you try to sell only one product on your web site. Focus on one product unless the solution you are providing is the offer of a wide catalogue.
7. Register a domain and set up a hosting account. There are many places online where you can register a domain and set up a hosting account in minutes.
8. Register for a merchant account (to set up quickly use PayPal.com). If you don't want to register a merchant account that will allow you to take credit card payments online, go to PayPal.com and sign in. It can be a little bit more expensive, but it is a simple way to take credit card payments online very quickly.
9. Set up a simple web site using an automatic site builder or pay to have someone set it up for you. Do not try to design your own web site unless you are educated on html. Do not waste your time. Hire someone else to do it or buy automatic web site builder software. There are many of these you can buy online.
10. Set up an opt-in form on your web site to collect e-mail addresses. You need to start collecting e-mail addresses for your newsletter. The major part of your business will come from the emails that you will send to your customer list.
11. Build an extensive keyword list based on the initial list of keywords you developed. Use Overture.com. For each keyword on the initial list, Overture can help you find different combinations with other words that you may find interesting. Check the popularity of each term and write down on a spread sheet your final keyword list.
12. Submit those keywords to Overture.com to start driving traffic right away. You need to start driving some traffic immediately in order to test your web site. The best way to do that is to buy this traffic at overture.com
13. Optimize and submit your web site to organic search engines (Google, Altavista, etc...). Once you have proved that your web site works and sells, you will be ready to make the business bigger. It is then time to start working on building free traffic to your site.
14. Continue to test and tweak your web site until target conversion rate is met. Your conversion ratio should be that 1-2% of your visitors should buy from your web site, and 11% should subscribe to your newsletter. Continue testing until you get those stats.
15. Set up an affiliate program on your web site. Affiliate programs can double your business with no additional effort. Others will make the job for you. But you cannot set up an affiliate program before you are sure that your web site can produce results. If your site does not work, you will loose your affiliates and they will never come back to you again.
16. Approach complimentary web sites to sign up as affiliates to promote your product. Get in contact with people that can promote your product and ask them to be your affiliates. Just try to find your first 100 affiliates, and your affiliate list will boom alone.
17. Start publishing a monthly newsletter. You have started collecting e-mail addresses much earlier, but it is not the time to start working the newsletter until you can prove that everything else works.
18. Submit articles to related newsletters and e-zines on a regular basis. In the articles you should always have a link to your site, so that you can get more traffic and you can get more people joining to your newsletter.
19. Continue the development of a content rich web site to further increase search engine rankings. Search engines love content. You must have many web sites which are rich on your keywords and which have links to your main page. A good way to do this is to add as many articles as you can related to your business and link them to your home page.
20. Once keywords have been tested in Overture, roll out in Google Adwords. It works similar to Overture, you bid for traffic. But do not go to Google Adwords first. You must first prove your success with Overture and then go to Google Adwords.
21. Roll out tested keyword list in other major PPCs. When you are sure about your stats, and you know how much money you collect per visitor, you must buy as much traffic as you can get as far as your income per visitor is higher than your bids.
22. Create a viral e-book to generate more leads. Create a free e-book that you can promote and which sells your product or service. Give it for free, and this will bring more traffic to your web site.
23. Have an expert review and critique your web site. Even if your site works, you can always improve. Listen to others and learn from their experiences.
24. Survey your existing customers to find out what other products or services they are looking for. Once you have a big list of customers, use it to find out what other problems do they have. Try to find or create a solution for them and you will boost your sales instantaneously.
25. Create and find back-end products and market them through your e-mail list. Continue finding more products that meet your customer demands and promote them via e-mail.
26. Continue to test and tweak your web site and offers. Nothing is perfect the first time and can always be improved. It is very important that you take action, even if you make mistakes. Learn from your errors and improve your skills.
27. Repeat process to create "Multiple Streams of Income". Once your business is working on automation, then you can start the process again with a new business. Build as many businesses as you can, and reduce your risks. If one business fails, but you have another 5 working businesses, who cares about it?
If you have read up to this point, you are probably asking yourself how much it will cost to get started? The answer is very simple; it depends on how much time and money you have available to invest! If you have a lot of time, you can do everything yourself. On the other hand, if you don't have time, you will have to pay other people for building your website and/or for optimizing your site on search engines.
If you can do nothing else...just launch a web site and start promoting online...
4/27/09
Proven Ways to Earn Money Online
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The internet is wealth creating resource. It has made millionaires of countless individuals who have found ways of providing products/services via the internet. This site is for e-marketers and future or home-based business owners. Here you’ll find ways to make money on the internet as well as work-at-home resources to help get you started. First, let’s start with the most common ways of making money online. Below are the 6 most common ways used today to earn income on the net:
Buying and Reselling/EbayDrop-shippingE-tradingMLM (Multilevel Marketing) and Direct SellingAffiliate/Referral Programs“Out of the box”
1. E-bay Selling - Buying and selling products is one the most common ways of making money online. It can be very profitable if you find, make or channel a product that is in demand for example: e-books/information, electronics, furniture, office supplies, apparel, etc. The key is to out-think the competition, since the creation of the Ebay phenomenon thousands of sellers have monetized on the opportunity. It’s important to find a product that you’re familiar with in order to be an effective seller; for example, don’t sell computers if you don’t know what “processor speed” is, you’ll just set yourself up for failure. If your having trouble finding a product try going to WWB, they offer products as well as information/ tools on how to find niche products and sell them on Ebay. You can also go to the Ebaystore to set up an inexpensive storefront if you don’t want to build your own.
Drawbacks to Ebay selling are:
Finding/making a profitable productCan be time consuming (Plan to spend 20-30 hrs/week)Very competitive market
2. Drop-ship- Drop-shipping is very similar- however the advantage to drop-shipping is that you don’t have to worry about moving the products yourself. With drop-shipping you’re really working as a third party in the sense that you find vendor’s who’ll drop-ship, and when you make a sale, they deliver the products directly to the customer for you-thus, no inventory or overhead costs? It can also save you the money and hassle of running to UPS every month to send/receive shipments. Another perk is that you don’t have to buy the product before you sell it! You simply take the order and give it to the manufacturer for shipping, and you receive a check, without having bought a thing. I know I make this sound pretty easy but in fact it takes an adequate amount of information gathering in order find hot products. The first thing you will need to obtain is a drop-ship directory in order to find vendors who drop-ship, it will cost you anywhere from $55-85, but the money you spend will more than pay you back in safety and time. The only source I recommend for directories is WorldWide again because their the only vendor directory provider that’s Ebay certified-there’s a lot of fakes out their posing as drop-ship providers who are really just “middlemen” trying to collect a commission.
Drawbacks to drop-shipping are:
It can be extremely time-consuming finding reputable vendors with profitable products that will work with drop-shippers.Backorders and returns can be a headache if you’re with a bad vendor.
3. E-trading is a trend growing more in popularity everyday. Right now the biggest e-trading market is Forex (Foreign Exchange Market) which has a higher turnover rate than the U.S. equity market. Foreign currency trading is a VERY lucrative market and involves simultaneously buying and selling currency online. Transactions take place OTC (Over the Counter) or via internet/phone, as there is no centralized location for trade such as with the stock or futures markets. Not only does Forex offer trading tutorials and conferences for you to learn to trade, but they also allow novice traders to get a taste of the market by allowing you to begin trading with as little as a $25 investment. Forex trading time is short in nature as it does not require long periods of holding before trading as with stocks or bonds. Actually 85% of all currency transactions last around a week or less. A great benefit of trading with Forex is that you aren’t charged commissions or exchange fees. They also offer “real time” price quotes. Go over to Forex.com to get more information about the currency trading market and how to get started.
Drawbacks:
Plan to have an investment of at least $250 to see the big bucks.The market can be very sporadic and due to the short term nature you will need to stay informed (daily, even hourly) of trends and economic changes that will cause value fluctuation.
4. MLM and Direct Selling business opportunities in my opinion are the most misrepresented and underestimated income opportunities on the web. Most of this is due to false and misleading claims about products/services and income potential made by shady distributors and sales associates. Multi-Level Marketing or (MLM) companies are organizations that provide a product or service and market it by “word of mouth” advertising or paying independent distributors to sell the products as oppose to paid advertising i.e., radio, TV, newspaper. These distributors sell the products and receive commissions; however the majority of the money is made by “referring” or bringing in more distributors, who then bring in more distributors, and so on. The key to these businesses is to find established and legit companies with good commission structures and not spend time and money on small, “fly by night” corporations. Direct Selling is really in essence MLM (even though they try hard to distinguish themselves) except the products that are usually sold are “higher ticket” or more expensive products. Direct selling allows you to make more money with fewer recruits because you have higher commissions. Both of these opportunities are for people who desire and motivation to “run their own business”, because once you recruit people in under you, you have to teach them how to do the same, it’s called the process of “duplication” which involves duplicating the work habits of successful individuals and teaching others to do the same. Income is unlimited and residual, so even when you retire from the business (realistically anywhere from 2-4 years) you’ll still receive checks! An initial investment is required for both opportunities in order to purchase the products and/or start-up kit so if your not looking to invest anywhere between $50-250 for an MLM or at least $500-2k for Direct Selling maybe these businesses aren’t for you.
Drawbacks:
With so many un-established companies on the internet its hard to discern what companies are paying real people real money, so do your research before pulling out your credit card.There is a high drop out rate in MLM’s due to lack of adequate training from the recruiter/upline and or motivation on the recruits part, so choose your upline carefully because some members will recruit you then leave you on the corner.Direct selling is bit more challenging due to the type of products/services being offered. It’s more challenging to sell due to the fact that a lot of people who are looking for a business are doing so because cash is tight, so most of them don’t have a grand to invest in order to start (believe me I know).
5. Last but not least we have Affiliate programs. Affiliate programs are perfect for people who don’t want to sell their own product, don’t want to talk to people on the phone or in person, and/or don’t want to spend a lot of money. An affiliate is someone who advertises a company’s services/products on their site by placing banners/ads of the company’s site on their website. When the organization makes a sale from your website link, and in some cases even a referral from the affiliate’s site, the affiliate receives a commission. Affiliate marketing is inexpensive to start because 99% of the companies don’t charge you to become an affiliate, and why should they? I mean after all you’re bringing them visitors, which turns into more sales revenue. You don’t have to have your own site to be an affiliate, but it is necessary if you’re looking to attract more visitors and make more money. The key is joining a good handful of affiliate programs so that you can create multiple streams of income, that’s how top affiliates earn thousands/week.
Drawbacks:
It can be challenging finding quality affiliate programs to join. Many companies claim to “have the best” program.If you don’t have traffic, what’s the point? It’s better if you actually KNOW HOW to bring traffic to websites. Many affiliates make money due to the fact that they don’t know how to market their programs.
Not enough??? Well try thinking out of the box. Most successful online marketers created income by simply finding a need or a solution for a product/service. For example, while vacationing in Colorado a few years ago I came across a guy who’d made millions simply by creating a website/lead capture page that surveyed people who were searching for real estate. The page, he stated, basically was a questionnaire collecting information about their requirements: price range, number of rooms, location, etc. After receiving the information from the site, he then sold their information as leads to mortgage companies and real estate agents in those local areas! This can be a very profitable business venture because real estate agents are always on the hunt for warm leads. You can even apply this to any other business where leads are sought after.
Don’t let drawbacks discourage you!! All of these strategies are viable and the most commonly used ways to make money online. You just have to have believe that you can be successful-besides what business doesn’t have its drawbacks?
The internet is wealth creating resource. It has made millionaires of countless individuals who have found ways of providing products/services via the internet. This site is for e-marketers and future or home-based business owners. Here you’ll find ways to make money on the internet as well as work-at-home resources to help get you started. First, let’s start with the most common ways of making money online. Below are the 6 most common ways used today to earn income on the net:
Buying and Reselling/EbayDrop-shippingE-tradingMLM (Multilevel Marketing) and Direct SellingAffiliate/Referral Programs“Out of the box”
1. E-bay Selling - Buying and selling products is one the most common ways of making money online. It can be very profitable if you find, make or channel a product that is in demand for example: e-books/information, electronics, furniture, office supplies, apparel, etc. The key is to out-think the competition, since the creation of the Ebay phenomenon thousands of sellers have monetized on the opportunity. It’s important to find a product that you’re familiar with in order to be an effective seller; for example, don’t sell computers if you don’t know what “processor speed” is, you’ll just set yourself up for failure. If your having trouble finding a product try going to WWB, they offer products as well as information/ tools on how to find niche products and sell them on Ebay. You can also go to the Ebaystore to set up an inexpensive storefront if you don’t want to build your own.
Drawbacks to Ebay selling are:
Finding/making a profitable productCan be time consuming (Plan to spend 20-30 hrs/week)Very competitive market
2. Drop-ship- Drop-shipping is very similar- however the advantage to drop-shipping is that you don’t have to worry about moving the products yourself. With drop-shipping you’re really working as a third party in the sense that you find vendor’s who’ll drop-ship, and when you make a sale, they deliver the products directly to the customer for you-thus, no inventory or overhead costs? It can also save you the money and hassle of running to UPS every month to send/receive shipments. Another perk is that you don’t have to buy the product before you sell it! You simply take the order and give it to the manufacturer for shipping, and you receive a check, without having bought a thing. I know I make this sound pretty easy but in fact it takes an adequate amount of information gathering in order find hot products. The first thing you will need to obtain is a drop-ship directory in order to find vendors who drop-ship, it will cost you anywhere from $55-85, but the money you spend will more than pay you back in safety and time. The only source I recommend for directories is WorldWide again because their the only vendor directory provider that’s Ebay certified-there’s a lot of fakes out their posing as drop-ship providers who are really just “middlemen” trying to collect a commission.
Drawbacks to drop-shipping are:
It can be extremely time-consuming finding reputable vendors with profitable products that will work with drop-shippers.Backorders and returns can be a headache if you’re with a bad vendor.
3. E-trading is a trend growing more in popularity everyday. Right now the biggest e-trading market is Forex (Foreign Exchange Market) which has a higher turnover rate than the U.S. equity market. Foreign currency trading is a VERY lucrative market and involves simultaneously buying and selling currency online. Transactions take place OTC (Over the Counter) or via internet/phone, as there is no centralized location for trade such as with the stock or futures markets. Not only does Forex offer trading tutorials and conferences for you to learn to trade, but they also allow novice traders to get a taste of the market by allowing you to begin trading with as little as a $25 investment. Forex trading time is short in nature as it does not require long periods of holding before trading as with stocks or bonds. Actually 85% of all currency transactions last around a week or less. A great benefit of trading with Forex is that you aren’t charged commissions or exchange fees. They also offer “real time” price quotes. Go over to Forex.com to get more information about the currency trading market and how to get started.
Drawbacks:
Plan to have an investment of at least $250 to see the big bucks.The market can be very sporadic and due to the short term nature you will need to stay informed (daily, even hourly) of trends and economic changes that will cause value fluctuation.
4. MLM and Direct Selling business opportunities in my opinion are the most misrepresented and underestimated income opportunities on the web. Most of this is due to false and misleading claims about products/services and income potential made by shady distributors and sales associates. Multi-Level Marketing or (MLM) companies are organizations that provide a product or service and market it by “word of mouth” advertising or paying independent distributors to sell the products as oppose to paid advertising i.e., radio, TV, newspaper. These distributors sell the products and receive commissions; however the majority of the money is made by “referring” or bringing in more distributors, who then bring in more distributors, and so on. The key to these businesses is to find established and legit companies with good commission structures and not spend time and money on small, “fly by night” corporations. Direct Selling is really in essence MLM (even though they try hard to distinguish themselves) except the products that are usually sold are “higher ticket” or more expensive products. Direct selling allows you to make more money with fewer recruits because you have higher commissions. Both of these opportunities are for people who desire and motivation to “run their own business”, because once you recruit people in under you, you have to teach them how to do the same, it’s called the process of “duplication” which involves duplicating the work habits of successful individuals and teaching others to do the same. Income is unlimited and residual, so even when you retire from the business (realistically anywhere from 2-4 years) you’ll still receive checks! An initial investment is required for both opportunities in order to purchase the products and/or start-up kit so if your not looking to invest anywhere between $50-250 for an MLM or at least $500-2k for Direct Selling maybe these businesses aren’t for you.
Drawbacks:
With so many un-established companies on the internet its hard to discern what companies are paying real people real money, so do your research before pulling out your credit card.There is a high drop out rate in MLM’s due to lack of adequate training from the recruiter/upline and or motivation on the recruits part, so choose your upline carefully because some members will recruit you then leave you on the corner.Direct selling is bit more challenging due to the type of products/services being offered. It’s more challenging to sell due to the fact that a lot of people who are looking for a business are doing so because cash is tight, so most of them don’t have a grand to invest in order to start (believe me I know).
5. Last but not least we have Affiliate programs. Affiliate programs are perfect for people who don’t want to sell their own product, don’t want to talk to people on the phone or in person, and/or don’t want to spend a lot of money. An affiliate is someone who advertises a company’s services/products on their site by placing banners/ads of the company’s site on their website. When the organization makes a sale from your website link, and in some cases even a referral from the affiliate’s site, the affiliate receives a commission. Affiliate marketing is inexpensive to start because 99% of the companies don’t charge you to become an affiliate, and why should they? I mean after all you’re bringing them visitors, which turns into more sales revenue. You don’t have to have your own site to be an affiliate, but it is necessary if you’re looking to attract more visitors and make more money. The key is joining a good handful of affiliate programs so that you can create multiple streams of income, that’s how top affiliates earn thousands/week.
Drawbacks:
It can be challenging finding quality affiliate programs to join. Many companies claim to “have the best” program.If you don’t have traffic, what’s the point? It’s better if you actually KNOW HOW to bring traffic to websites. Many affiliates make money due to the fact that they don’t know how to market their programs.
Not enough??? Well try thinking out of the box. Most successful online marketers created income by simply finding a need or a solution for a product/service. For example, while vacationing in Colorado a few years ago I came across a guy who’d made millions simply by creating a website/lead capture page that surveyed people who were searching for real estate. The page, he stated, basically was a questionnaire collecting information about their requirements: price range, number of rooms, location, etc. After receiving the information from the site, he then sold their information as leads to mortgage companies and real estate agents in those local areas! This can be a very profitable business venture because real estate agents are always on the hunt for warm leads. You can even apply this to any other business where leads are sought after.
Don’t let drawbacks discourage you!! All of these strategies are viable and the most commonly used ways to make money online. You just have to have believe that you can be successful-besides what business doesn’t have its drawbacks?
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