The 12 things all new internet marketers should know

The author gives an easy to follow 12-point guide and advice to all new Internet marketers and online business owners to help them excel in this very interesting, exciting, rewarding and yet challenging business venture.

1) It has been reported that there are about 600,000,000 people on the Net world wide at the moment. And the annual growth of the number of surfers is exponential! You can imagine the potential market for Internet business is immensely huge. The chances of your success in the business online are tremendous. Your journey towards that would be a very exciting and rewarding one indeed.

2) Plan your work and work your plan. Like any other forms of work, you must have a plan for your Internet business. Set an achievable short term, medium term and long term objectives, prepare a budget and stick to them as far as possible. Carry out periodical checking to determine any deviations from the plan and take the necessary remedial actions.

3) Do not ever try to spam i. e. sending unsolicited e-mails to unexpected recipients under any circumstances. I get very annoyed when I find chunks of unwanted e-mails plugging my mailbox resulting in the e-mails from my friends and business associates being “lost” in the midst of these junks mails. The frustrating process of deleting them is enough to drive me through the roof! If you insisted on “spamming”, you’d very likely have your name terminated by the server. It is therefore not worth the while because eventually your business would suffer.

4) Do not try to be a Jack of all trades. Choose only a niche product or service or something where your own expertise lies in. Then consolidate your business by focusing on what you do best. Many Internet marketers have developed very enterprising, lucrative and rewarding online businesses doing what they enjoy and love best i. e. hobbies.

5) Respect, understand and always keep abreast with the advance of technology because it could help you achieve your business vision and personal goals. The ever changing technology provides us with countless tools with which we could use to enhance our businesses. A very good example is the advent of BLOGs. The software used for this today is so simple and friendly that old hats with rusty and somewhat retarded brains like me very often find the process of blogging as enjoyable and relaxing as a breezy walk in the park!

6) Design your webpage or blogs with quality content that would exert yourself and your business as an authority in your field. You should have a content that is not only attractive but also informative to advise especially the first-time visitors what benefits they would enjoy from your products or services. It should be able to persuade customers to keep coming back to your website to repeat their orders and convert casual visitors to prospects and prospects to customers.

7) You'd be tempted with countless of seemingly very attractive offers and promises from the Web to help improve your business. Do not fall into the trap of some of these promises. Just stay with a handful of strategies that work and stick with them.

For example, if you're submitting articles to drive free traffic to your sites and it's showing positive dividends, stick to it and continue with this strategy while improving and fine-tuning others.

8) By all means, study your competitors, watch their activities and every move. But love thy competitors, not hate them. Do not “knock” them into oblivion. Unlike conventional business, you should always find ways to work along them if not with them. There are many online organizations, big and small, working very closely together even in the same product or service market sectors. Very good examples are the joint venture partnerships and link exchanges among the so-called competitors.

9) Do not be too “innovative” by creating and marketing new and unproven products or services that the market is not willing or ready to buy. Conduct a web research to identify products which command good market and offer them to the hungry and ready market. You could do some modification to improve it in order to have product differentiation and hence enjoying better comparative advantage over your competitors.

10) In Internet marketing, always remember three very important words. They're…LIST, LIST and LIST. Also, do not forget the popular Internet adage “The Gold is in your LIST!” This means that a big chunk of your time, effort and concentration should be directed to getting the right strategy to drive traffic to your site. Advertising is therefore of utmost importance.

11) Although this is a home based business with all the freedom in the world, it's prudent to have some form of discipline. Once you’ve decided to sit in front of the computer to start working online, you must stay focused and do not allow any distraction to affect your concentration. Treat it as your business and not a hobby. It would be nice to stick to a schedule which is also made known to other members of your family so that they'd know when to leave you alone. However do not get carried away and spend too much time in front of your PC because your loved ones, including your pets also deserve your attention and time.

12) Internet marketing is still one of the best businesses one could venture into especially when there is no demand for big capital outlay. With this huge and expanding audience coupled with the fact that marketing and advertising can be done on the Internet so easily and at only a fraction of the costs of traditional methods, we now have a fantastic opportunity to be successful in online business.

Many companies have now positioned themselves profitably with the Internet which has created many new paradigms in the past few years. Passive incomes are made available to people from all walks of life. You can now make money online with simple and proven formula used by many to earn multiple streams of residual income.

However, like any other conventional businesses, there would be times when you would encounter failures and disappointment. Do persevere as this is not a get-rich-quick scheme. Time, effort and some financial input are necessary. It would take a while to see the fruit of your effort. Use any failures to your advantage by learning from them. See success in every failure and opportunity in every threat.

13 tips to make your website more successful

I was looking around at some websites to see what things I liked and disliked about them. There is no doubt that there are things that attract people and there are things that totally turn people off.

I have made a list of 13 tips that can help make your website more successful. Most of them are simple but quite effective at making your site more user friendly.

1. Make your site simple - With all of the bells and whistles available, too many people are trying to see how impressive they can make their websites. They may be attractive but unless your goal is to win a contest for best site, impressing people with glitter will not make sales.

2. Make sure your site loads quickly - You do not have long to grab your customer's attention. Make sure that you at least get a fair shot at grabbing his attention. If your site takes too long to load, you will lose a lot of potential customers without even giving your site a chance.

3. Don't have too many items on one page - You do not want to confuse your visitors. You want to make sure that they understand th purpose of your site. Too many items on one page can make this difficult for some. Don't take the chance. Make all of your pages simple.

4. Make sure every page lings to home page - It is much easier for your visitors to navigate if all of your pages link back to the home page. You will not lose as many potential customers if you make your site easier to navigate.

5. Get your own domain name - Free servers are great for some things but trying to gain credibility in a business is not one of them. It is well worth the price to get your own domain.

6. Make sure your hosting service offers full support - You want your service to have CGI access and offer secure ordering. This is a place that you don't want to go for cheap. Make sure your service offers the things you need before you choose and save a lot of headaches down the road.

7. Offer as many options for ordering as possible - The more options you provide for ordering, the fewer cutomers you will lose. You should have a secure order form on your site. Offering the options to order by phone, fax and by regular mail can also increase the number who will order.

8. Make sure you accept credit cards - If you don't accept credit cards, you are making a huge mistake. The biggest percent of your customers will pay this way if the option is available. Don't take the chance that they will choose another method if credit cards are not a possibility.

9. Offer free information on your site - You will want to offer some type of free material on your site. Free material such as courses are a very good way to build yourself as an expert in the eyes of your visitor. Free ebooks are another good thing to offer. Make sure these freebies are good solid information that can help your visitors.

10. Get your visitor's email address - You can accompish this in quite a few different ways. Giving away the courses or ebooks is one great way. You can publish a newsletter or ezine that your visitors can sign up for on your site.

11. Make sure to build your site with purpose in mind - If you are trying to sell a product on your site, then sell that product. If you are just trying to get addresses and make the sale later, then make that your purpose when building your site.

12. Encourage feedback - Make your visitor feel like his opinion is important. Offer him the chance to provide you with feedback. Don't be too proud to make changes if you start hearing some of the same things from your visitors.

13. Remember that you are building this site for your customers - This is not a site to fulfill some fantasy of yours. Remember the purpose of your site. Keep your customers wants and needs in your mind as you design it.

Your website is one of those things that will determine if you are a marketing success. Make sure that you make your website user friendly. Also make sure that you don't lose sight of the purpose of your site. If your sit e does not come across direct to your visitor, you are going to lose many visitors before you can even make a pitch.

How webcasts can improve your marketing reach and reduce your costs

The globalised internet economy has effectively reduced barriers to markets in all parts of the world. It is now possible to converse with partners, suppliers and customers seven days a week, 24 hours a day with practically no time and distance barriers.

As a result conventional methods are no longer sufficient to reach potential customers. Companies must adapt their marketing methods to include communication tools, such as VOIP, opened up by the Internet.

One very powerfull method of reaching customers and prospects is organising regular Web Events in the form of live online presentations and seminars, also called Webcasts or Webinars.

With the technologies that are now available on the Internet, you are now able to present content in a compelling way by using audio, video, animation and graphics. This cannot be matched in any way by printed materials or a phone call.

The advantages are obvious. In comparison to Trade Shows, locally held Training Workshops and Seminars, a Webcast is set up in a shorter time span, with much less reliance on resources and manpower, resulting in a improved cost effectiveness.

By repeating the Webcast at various dates and times you also allow your prospects and customers to choose a presentation which can better fit their schedules. It will also allow you to reach more potential customers.

A positive side effect, is the use of audio and video recordings to enable you to reach other prospects once the Webcast has been held. By posting the recording on your website, you can further profit from the Webcast. For example, you can use it as an on-demand product to build an opt-in list, improve your customer service or even to generate an additional profit stream.

Now consider the choice you offer your customers and propects. By just comparing having to travel to an event location and waste precious time in traveling, as opposed to attending a Webcast at your own PC, at a time they can choose, the latter choice wins everytime.

This means you are able to reach a targeted audience and interact with a maximum number of people regardless of time zone, location or other restrictions you would have, by traveling or meeting the person face to face. You are able to do this at a fraction of the cost that a normal event would incur.

At Conferentia, we use our VOIP Conference System to host regular Webcasts to show our prospects just how they can use Conferentia to do the same with their own products and services.

We have found that once the Webcast concept is set up, with a little practice, people easily slip into the role of moderator and presenter. Someone who is used to doing live presentations has no problem with the change to using Conferentia.

You can practically take your PowerPoint presentation, generate HTML-files out of it. Put it online and you can use it in your Conferentia VOIP conference room within minutes. You send an e-mail to customers and prospects and can have them attending your Webcast within the first 24 hours. It is easier then you think.

I recommend you visit one of our Webcasts and see for yourself. You will be surprised at the ease of use and I am convinced you will be planning your first Webevent within minutes of being online with us.

Get thousands of visitors by submitting to directories

There is no question that the key to running a successful business is to generate a steady traffic flow. There are a number of ways you can increase your traffic flow, but submitting to directories can be extremely successful. Whether it is submitting articles to article directories or submitting your site to web site directories, you will begin to get thousands of visitors by doing so.

When you submit to directories, you are receiving free advertising. All over the internet you will see advertisements and promotions trying to get you to pay for advertising. But in reality, submitting to directories can be equally successful when it comes to increasing your traffic flow.

There are thousands of people that search article directories and web site directories for ideas and opinions. Whether the web surfers are looking for ideas for their own site or just quality content, you will have your content and site viewed thousands of times. And by placing a link to your site with the submission, people will have easy access to be redirected to your site.

Submitting articles to article directories can do much more than provide a link for people to click on. When you submit articles, you are also delivering quality content to be seen by hundreds of thousands of people. There is so much duplicate content on the internet that readers are salivating for fresh content. If you can produce fresh and enticing content, people will jump to your site to see what else you have to offer.

Another way you can get thousands of visitors to your site by submitting to directories is through page rank. By targeting specific keywords on your web site, you can climb higher on the search engines. The better your site flows and casually spreads your keywords throughout, the higher your page rank will be.

Search engines reward quality sites with a higher page rank. Typically you will find the higher page rank sites toward the top of the search engines. And according to the golden triangle rule, internet surfers tend to focus on the top four or five searches on the search engines. Therefore, try to spread keywords throughout your site without making it too obvious and you will begin to climb up the search engines.

A business is nothing without traffic. You could have the best web site in the world, but if nobody knows it exists, it is nothing. That is why it is essential that you take the time to submit your articles and web site to thousands of article directories and web site directories. The more directories you submit to, the better chance you have of people seeing your site. From there, you will notice a steady increase in the amount of traffic you receive.

Always look for directories with either high page rank, or a good predicted page rank. Normally new directories make good ground fast in traffic, page rank and serp. This is good for your site and surely worth submitting to, because they are either cheap or free.

What are you waiting for then, GET SUBMITTING!!!!!