How To Take Your Local Business Online

I started my first business in 1968 and have owned over a dozen offline businesses. I retired in 1998 to live a life of leisure in a coastal community in northern California (USA).

I started using the Internet about that time, mainly for email and news. Gradually I saw the potential -- the huge potential of online business.

The more I learned, the more excited I became. I decided to resurrect my last business, Win-Win Marketing (tm), which produced educational materials for offline small business owners.

This time, I am dedicated to helping offline businesses get online to achieve the success their hard work deserves.

But enough about me. How can I help you?

Without anyone much noticing, the business world divided a few years ago into off-line businesses (the old brick and mortar, high overhead, high risk, high stress world we have always known) and on-line businesses (the internet, low overhead, low risk, low stress, work whenever, wherever world).

The offline world hasn't changed. But online? Only one word suffices -- WOW.

Driven by the computer revolution, the internet has expanded dramatically. Prices to start a business are trivially low. Barriers to entry are low. Ease of learning the material is rapidly improving.

The good news is that it is now easy for you to expand online. The bad news -- the same is true for your competitors.

You are in a race to get online before your competitors do. The winner will reap a huge reward. The losers will stay where they are, at best. Or, more likely, lose business.

WHY Your Business Should Be Online

Huge Market Potential
Millions use the internet daily to search for new products and services to buy. How many would it take to double your profits?

Choose Your Location
Operate the internet part of your business from anywhere you want. Run it from your office or the beach.

Automation makes it easy
Most of the work can be automated:
- taking orders
- sending order confirmations
- fulfillment
- follow-up
- direct deposit of commission checks

Low Start-Up Costs
Under a thousand dollars for a new business -- and that is if you have to buy a new computer. Compare that to starting a new brick and mortar business.

No Inventory
By using affiliate programs, digitally downloaded products, or drop shipping you can sell almost anything and never store or ship a thing. (If these terms are unfamiliar, don't worry, we will cover them in future lessons).

With minimal preparation, you can finally take a real vacation, and the money will keep coming in.

So, What Do You Want?
- expand your business
- create a new stream of income
- replace your business
- vacation whenever you want
- end employee hassles

Your Own Web Site
Internet success starts with a web site -- your location on the global superhighway.

Do you have one? If so,
- does it work?
- can YOU change it?
- is it costing you an arm and a leg for insignificant results?
- is it a cost center or a profit center?

If your web site is not making you money, it is time for a change!

The internet can and will grow your local business. Whether you want:
- increased foot traffic,
- greater customer loyalty,
- or more sales.

How? There are two fundamental ways -- Out and In.

Reach Out
This is a 2-step process.
1. Begin right now to capture your customers' email addresses.
2. Send them an email. Then another and another.
Simple and effective.

Let Them In
This works the opposite way:
1. Build a web site
2. They come to your site and read your message.
Simple and effective.

And it is even more effective when you combine them:
- When people visit your site, try to get an email address to begin your email campaign.
- In your emails, invite them to your web site.

Done right, this creates a strong relationship with your customers and your soon-to-be customers.

Notice how much more immediate and personal this is than the usual "run an ad and hope someone comes."

And this approach is so much cheaper than display ads and Yellow Pages ads, that you can afford to offer special incentives. Then watch the customers flood in.

But Wait -- There's More
In addition to the Out and In techniques, the internet offers many more ways to add to your bottom line.

--> How about thousands of total strangers dropping by your virtual business without any advertising costs? Using the free search engines, such as Google and Yahoo will be covered in a future lesson (5).

--> How about an advertising method where you only pay for actual visitors? Pay-per-click programs such as Google AdWords will be covered in a future lesson (5).

--> How about a huge online store with millions of eager customers that would just love to buy your products? That is today's final segment.

eBay
eBay is that online store that would love to share its millions of customers with you.

All you have to do is sign up, which is free and then set up an auction to sell your products, which can cost as little as 30 cents. The fundamentals are easy and eBay even has free tutorials.

If your business sells products, eBay will probably be an on-going profit center for you. Even if you don't sell products -- yet, it is a great way to clean out your garage.

As homework, I recommend you visit eBay to see the vast array of possibilities.

Ebay

In addition to promoting your current business, you can make extra money by selling other people's products.

The two primary ways to do that are:
- drop shipping and
- affiliate programs.

What Is Drop Shipping?
Drop shipping is a simple concept. You take an order for a product that someone else manufactures, send them the order, they fulfill, you make a profit.

As long as the product complements your product line, it is a natural extension. It will fit well on your web site.

If not, you will be better off setting up a special web site for that product line. Of course, only if it makes good economic sense.

The trick is to find a reputable firm to do business with. While there are lots of catalogs and books available that list drop shipping companies, the turn over is high and printed material goes quickly out of date.

The best product I have seen for connecting with drop shippers is listed below. They have a web site with constantly updated material. dropship

What Is An Affiliate Program?

This is even easier than drop shipping. You just mention a product on your web site, provide the link to another merchant's site, and collect a commission for every sale.

Typically there are no costs of any kind to join (although you should buy and test any product you are going to stake your reputation on by recommending it).

The merchant does all the selling, fulfilling, and accounting -- you just recommend and collect.

Once you have it set up on your site, the process is totally automated -- you will be making money while you sleep!

There is a tremendous variety of programs you can join. Most provide digital products, which means the customer can buy and download the product at any time of the day or night.

The best book on the subject I know of is one written by a woman who made almost a half million dollars last year through affiliate programs. So you might say she knows the subject!

Check out her web site for more information on how to add this lucrative income stream to your business:SuperAffiliate

2 great internet specific ways to promote your current business are: ezines and a "super Yellow Pages" ad. Here we will examine both.

What Is An Ezine?
Ezine is short for electronic magazine. It is a high powered way for you to repeatedly connect with your customers and your prospects.

Instead of sending out ads, with an ever diminishing return, an ezine brands you as an expert and produces an escalating effect. Done right, people start to look forward to your ezine. And to treat the recommendations contained therein with increased respect.

You must do it right. Respect the needs of your readers and try to provide just the information they want.

An ezine is NOT a sales letter. It is 1 to 3 short articles containing solid information of interest to your audience.

Then, and only then, have you earned the right to present a sales message. But even then it should be related to your ezine's topic, and hence your audience's interests.

And it doesn't have to be a lot of work. In fact, the most successful ezines are written in a conversational style.

If you can dictate into a tape recorder, you can create an ezine. And, bottom line, the bottom line profits will make it well worth your while.

What Is A "Super Yellow Pages" Ad?
Most businesses willingly pay for a Yellow Pages ad, even though it is quite expensive. Why? Because for the most part, they work.

However, what if you could get a Yellow Pages ad as large as you want, at no extra cost?

What if it could be seen all over the world, at no extra cost?

What if you could add color, sound, pictures, and animation, at no extra cost?

What if you could change it as often as you like, at no extra cost?

All the above features are contained in a web site. For a fraction of the cost of a full page Yellow Pages ad. In fact, a web site could be thought of as an infinite Yellow Pages ad.

You can give a complete sales presentation, without the arbitrary boundaries of the printed page. You can have one or more pages for each product you offer. You can list all the common questions your customers ask and their answers.

You can increase sales and decrease that ringing telephone. So, ...

Have Your Web Site Yet?
If not, what are you waiting for? You are putting off extra profits. For an easy way to get started, visit the site below for an all-in-1 approach: xSitePro

I absolutely love this package. I have created over 200 websites myself -- most In less than 1 hour. It is easy and the best part is, if you have a brain, you can create your own websites -- NOT have to hire someone to create one for you. Hiring someone can get pretty darned expensive!

To see how easy it is:
Click here to view the "7 Reasons Why You Need XSitePro Now!" video

When you're an offline business owner, it might be difficult for you to wrap your brain around the concepts of building a business on the Internet. There are so many components that go into running an online company, and it can get confusing if you don't have countless hours to spend educating yourself about each process.

One way to support your transformation or expansion from an offline business to an online entity is to outsource some of the tasks to qualified people (usually freelancers) who can shoulder some of the burden for you.

For instance, if you've never built a website, you might hire a web designer skilled in graphics who can provide you with a professional home on the 'net. You'll want to make sure they're SEO-savvy, too so that when your site goes live, you start showing up in Google whenever a prospective customer types n a keyword relevant to the service or products you sell.

You can find freelancers who can create your content, too. If you're not a professional writer, a ghostwriter can develop information products, blog posts, and web content that will help you with your "findability" factor online.

Where do you go to outsource your online to-do list? You can try word of mouth references if you are already networking with like-minded marketers. Or, you can post your projects on one of the many freelance websites like www.Elance.com, www.Guru.com, or www.Rentacoder.com.

The freelancers on these sites are used to working with everyone from newbies to advanced online marketers - and they can help you develop a plan of action for your outsourcing needs.

Make sure when you outsource that you check profiles for experience and qualifications, as well as looking at portfolios to see if their deliverables match your style. You'll also want to do some comparison-shopping while you're there so you don't blow your online budget with one overpriced provider.

Squidoo is another way to get your products in front of the world by selling the products directly or using the lens to generate traffic to your main website.

There are several lenses on how to create a lens. One of the best is How To Squidoo And Change The World which tells you how to create a great lens and generate traffic to it. Check it out by clicking How To Squidoo And Change The World

Introduction
The life blood of any business is traffic. It's the same on the internet. However the internet business person has two great traffic sources not available to an offline business.

Today's lesson is:
- How to get thousands of total strangers to drop by your virtual business with NO advertising costs
- An advertising method where you only pay for visitorsin Part

Search Engines
People on the internet love information. And the internet is full of information. Billions and billions of pages of information.

That is the problem. It would be virtually impossible to find anything on the internet were it not for computerized librarians, known as "search engines."

Their sole task is to search -- for whatever you tell it you are interested in.

Search engines come in two varieties: free and paid. That is, from the advertiser's point of view. For the searcher, they are all free.

Another way they are sometimes characterized is: "pay to play" vs. "pray to play."

Let's take a look at the "pray to play" methods first.

No Cost Advertising -- The Free Search Engines
The free search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, are obviously great choices. What could be better than free?

Since these search engines are free, they are also free to make the rules. You follow their rules or get left out.

There is just one tiny little problem here. The rules are secret! Well, not all the rules, but many.

For that reason an entire industry, know as search engine optimization, has grown up. Thousands of very smart people spend every waking hour trying to discover these secret rules and selling that information to millions of web site owners.

So, okay, you just have to buy this information once and live happily ever after, right?

Alas, not. Each month, the big guy, Google, deliberately changes its own rules, in what is known as the "Google Dance." Suddenly, without warning, top ranked web sites fall off the radar.

Further complicating the picture, each search engine has its own secret rules.

Looks pretty hopeless, doesn't it? Again reinforcing the name "PRAY to play."

Now you can see why most site owners do not RELY on the free search engines. Sometimes you win with them; sometimes you don't. But, hey, it's free advertising -- when it happens.

That is why most people use the low cost strategy to complement the free approach.

Go to the next section for Part B of this lesson.

Low Cost Advertising -- Pay-Per-Click Search Engines
Companies such as Google AdWords use a pricing model that most business owners wish that newspapers, magazines, radio, and TV would use -- charge only for results! They are known as pay-per-clicks.

That's right, they only charge you for each prospect that clicks onto your web site from their ad. Of course, closing the sale is up to you, but at last you have an accountable advertising method.

One fascinating aspect of the pay-per-clicks is that you get to say how much you will pay! You can see how much your competitors are paying for a search term and then bid on it. You can buy first position by outbidding everyone else, or settle for, say, fifth position at perhaps a great savings.

You have an unprecedented amount of control. It is no wonder they are so popular.

Cashing In On Google
The 800 pound gorilla of search engines is Google. They have both free and pay-per-click approaches.

Their pay-per-click division is called Google AdWords. It puts related ads on the results of the free Google searches.

For example, if a searcher is looking for information about greenhouses, it is likely that she might be interested in ads from companies that sell greenhouse kits. Such ads appear to the side of the search results, so that the searcher can easily distinguish between the free information and the commercial ads.

Many merchants make a full time living just from Google AdWords. One excellent book that clearly explains this process is called Google Cash. To see how to get started making money from Google, visit the site below:

GoogleCash

If you buy something from this lens, a portion of the royalties is donated to Heifer International. Their work is helping people around the world obtain a sustainable source of food and income to help them become self-reliant.

You can also make a direct TAX EXEMPT donation by clicking Heifer International. Won't that feel good?

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Writing For Your Business

As a business owner, writing is not a luxury. It is a necessity if you want to write sales letters, put content on your website, or get the word out about your business through articles.

The best resource I can recommend is Ron X. King's website. Ron is a prolific writer and can show you all you want and need to know about writing. To check out his site, click Great Articles (www.ronxking.com)

A Great Resource

For very cheap ebooks, Audio Books, eCourses, Ezines, Software, Websites, Templates and More, click 777-now.com

FREE Web Templates

Creating a website that looks professional is a must. If you do not have the knowledge to create your own or are on a tight budget, you can get FREE professionally designed web templates at:
Open Source Web Design

Introduction
Previously we discussed the easy way to profit -- sell someone else's products. That is the quickest way to turn a profit with the least amount of work. Affiliate programs and drop shipping were the methods discussed.

But when it comes to maximizing profits, there is no better way, offline or online, than to own the whole thing.That way you have total control: product, pricing, and marketing.

Instead of splitting with the creator of the products, you keep 100% of the profits.

All you have to do is ...

Create Your Own Product
Now there are all types of products you could create. However, since we are talking about maximum profits, the best choice is simple -- information.

The profit margin on internet delivered information products is typically about 95%!

But how can you create a whole new product when you are busy running your business?

Just recognize four things:

1. you are already an "expert" in certain areas:
your business, your hobbies, and your life experiences.

2. you can become an "expert" in any area that interests you through research.

3. the word "expert" was in quotes above, because you don't have to be an absolute expert, you just need to know more about the subject material than your target market does, and be able to package it into a set of instructions that helps them move toward their goals in that area.

4. you can buy information products that teach you how to produce information products.

A Book To Help You
One book that I can recommend which will show you how to create your own information product is:

Create an eBook in 7 Days
will guide you step-by-step to:
- identify a target market with laser-beam focus
- create an ebook idea that will sell
- write your ebook quickly
- get free editing services
- publish your ebook to sell on the web
- start marketing, selling and making money.

To see exactly how you can do this yourself, click 7Days

In this lesson, we are going to talk about the most exciting topic in the whole course -- your very own highly profitable internet business. To get started, all you have to do is ...

Create A New Internet Business
By definition the essence of an internet business is a web site. For web site design, there are two basic approaches: a content site and a mini site.

A content site is relatively large, usually 20 pages or more. It concentrates on one general topic, for example, real estate in Brazil.

The mini site in contrast is typically only 1 to 5 pages. It's aim is to sell one specific product, for example, an ebook on travel to Brazil.

Since your first site is likely to be an extension of your off-line business, the content site is your likely choice.

Fill your web pages with interesting copy directed toward your target customer. Make everything from their point of view. Then end with a suggested action step. Preferably one that will make you some money.

Solicit feedback from the readers to improve the site. Implement the good suggestions. Automate every function possible.

Soon you will have a virtual money machine.

But Why Stop At One?
Once you see just how doable it is to create an internet business, the natural reaction is why didn't I do it sooner?

Without the hassles of normal business ownership, a web business soon becomes so automatic that it can become, well, boring. The money is nice, but the challenge is not there anymore.

Fortunately, there is a simple cure -- do it again. And the second web site is definitely easier. Much easier. And faster to get profitable.

Many web entrepreneurs have dozens of web sites, in widely diverse fields. It all starts with one. When you are ready to start on your web site, recognize that you are about to make the most important decision of your business life.

Demand proof. Compare the quantity and quality of successful sites. I did and concluded that SiteSell is the best choice by far. Here is the proof: Proof

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