Legitimate Internet Marketing Strategies

The benefits of operating an online business are many. You have an unlimited customer base. Numerous methods from which to choose how you will earn your income. A much lower start up cost than running a basic real world business would run, and you can diversify without a great deal of additional cost, thereby receiving income from a number of sources rather than just one. But best of all is the fact that you get to work from home.

Risks of operating an online business are very similar to those involved with the opening of any business venture and with a few added extra security risks thrown in. It all comes down to the same basic risks of opening a business in your home town. If you are not successful in your venture, then you will lose the hours that you spent trying to make the venture work, and you will lose the money that you invested into your online business.

The greatest challenge of running an online business is having your product, website or storefront found by the people that you want there. When you open a store in your hometown people walk buy the business, see it, and if it is a product that they are interested in then they come in to browse. On the internet it is actually quite difficult to have someone just stumble across your product, storefront or website. You have to spend a tremendous amount of time and energy insuring that you lead them into your neighborhood.

Now this is where diversification comes into play. I'm a firm believer in that old saying "never put all your eggs in one basket" and really, why should you when you don't have to? There is safety in numbers and this saying is even more accurate when it refers to the conduction of business on the internet.

So maybe you are a farmer. You went out shopping for chicken wire to keep your little peepers penned up but you couldn't find the chicken wire that you were looking for anywhere. Darn it, cause that is the best chicken wire out there...

So you decide to go right to the manufacturer, open a web site, and sell the wire yourself. You make a deal with the manufacturer to sell his product online and for him to dropship it on your behalf. (Droppshipping simply means that you sell it, and he ships it, so you never have to try to find a spot to store all that extra stock. Cool concept huh.) So now you create a website devoted to selling "RUSTY'S CHICKEN WIRE" and you are officially in business.

So you have your website up, and it looks mighty pretty, you now operate an online business. So what you now have to do is promote your business. You have to get as high up onto the search engines as you are able to...

So you submit your link to the major search engines. Unfortunately they can only find you under the keyword chicken wire, so you decide to add a little more information to your site, you decide to discover other potential keywords. By doing so people will be able find you under a few different headings. This is also the start of how you begin to diversify your online business.

You write an article on different species of chickens, another on different types of pens for chickens, and yet another on rearing chicks. Then you figure that you might diversify a bit more, it makes sense because you are already heading into that neighborhood anyways, so you start selling incubators. Then you start selling chicken feed. These products are also being sold using the dropship method so that you do not need to actually purchase the stock, and store it, you simply need to promote it.

Now you are being picked up on the search engines in a number of areas but you are still sitting too far down on the ratings to get noticed. Oh darn...

You set up a Google Analytics account with Google so that you can track the visitors to your site. More importantly, you verify your site with Google and create Google site maps so Google will be able to find you easier. You also add Google ads to your site to insure that Google will check into your site on a regular basis.

Nice thing is that by adding Google ads to your store frontage you have also created an additional income stream from Google Ads. Every time someone clicks on an ad you get paid. You figure these additional moves might be the little bit of extra insurance that your internet business needs to succeed.

(Just in case the big chicken deal doesn't work out quite as planned it would you will still have some income coming in!)

You begin creating linkage to make yourself more important in the eyes of the search engines by writing blogs. At the bottom of each blog you list "Rusty's Chicken Wire" website. For every blog or article that you write on the joys of farming and raising chickens, you get another link leading people into your storefront, and with each one another opportunity for someone to accidentally stumble your direction. You trade links with a few other business people and you create a few more opportunities. The search engines are starting to notice that you are out there and they are raising you up a little higher in their directories.

Then you start to notice that you are actually making more money with Google ads then chicken wire so you open yet another web site. This one you decide to devote to entirely to affiliate marketing.

You are catching on that the more often that you appear out there in Cyberspace, than the more important you appear to the major search engines, which is what adds up to extra traffic traveling to your websites.

Your blogs carry affiliate ads which bring you in a little extra money, but then you discover that you can also place links to these same blogs on sites that will actually pay you, to provide you with linkage to your blogs. Double payment for exactly what you want to do.... create linkage.

So you head on over to RedGage to place links to the blogs that you have already written and you discover that you can also earn money by posting photographs. Well the old chicken farm is very picturesque so you start downloading to RedGage thirty years worth of your farm photos. Things are looking pretty good for linkage there.

You then stop by Gather.com and place links to these very same blogs on that site. On Gather.com you will not only earn a few freebies for your time and effort but you will also be creating additional linkage to your blogs once again.

Your next stops should be to Chimein.com, Delicious.com and Digg.com to pop your link in on these sites.

Things are really starting to move.....

You are now pulling in a little money. Funny thing is that you start to realize that the money you earn online doesn't come in one lump sum or from just one online business. The money is coming in a little here, and a little there, off all the online businesses that you have started.

The wife is starting to notice all the little checks coming in the mail....

She decides that she would like to try her hand at Internet marketing. She likes to crochet so she opens an information site on what she deems as her favorite pastime, then she adds Google ads, as well as other related affiliate marketing to it. She lists her crochet patterns for sale on it.

Meanwhile you decide to open a few new sites, the cost is very low so what the heck, why not? You are using drop shipping to supply your customers with their products so you do not even have to purchase stock. The drop shipper even handles the returns so you pretty much just build the website and then sit back and create linkage (which is kind of fun). You now have six websites and the wife has three when suddenly one goes wild. It seems that this is the one site that every wants to visit! Instead of counting sleep in your sheep you are now counting ways that you can spend that next check when it arrives.

My point is that there is safety in numbers. The first web site that you build might not work, the second one may not either but that third one just might be the one that will pay for them all! You are also pulling in maybe $100. a month from blogging, $75. a month from chicken wire, the wife $200. a month selling crochet patterns, etc etc. Because costs of doing business on the internet are low, you get to keep more of what you earn, so don't be afraid to branch out a bit.

Have fun and good luck!

Squidoo's name would lead one to presume that a kingdom of squids are busily swimming around on an underwater webpage.

Well that is not too far from the truth except that Squidoo is really not underwater and the squid's are busy creating webpages instead of swimming around in some Internet based ocean....A Squidoo Review.

Twitter can be a powerful tool for keeping in touch with personal and business contacts. www.twitter.com is quite simply an Online messenger service. The service itself is free of charge, and it allows you to easily, and immediately, send updates throughout the day to those who you most want to receive them.



Messages must be less than 140 characters in length and can be received through web, instant message, or mobile text. Links are automatically shortened to fit them into your message....read more on Twitter.

The Internet can be a scary place to play. There are unscrupulous individuals out there attempting to steal your money, and your identity, and it is up to you to insure your safety out there. There are a million Internet scams out there attempting to lure you in, and you need to be aware of the measures, and steps that you need to use to protect yourself while Online.

So how can you help to keep your wallet and your identity away from those unscrupulous individuals? Start by not giving them the information that they want...Why you need to read the fine print on all 'terms and conditions'.

A writer's thoughts are a little different from those of other individuals. Writers are just always naturally looking for those tiny little pieces of life and living that will become the basis for their next article or story line.

Little mental notes made, and tucked away, to be used at a later date. No opportunity is left unnoticed; even the simple task of yard chores on a sunny summer day, to a writer, means using your back yard as an inspiration for writing. It is amazing what is out there if you really stop to see what goes on in the yard around you...Using your backyard as inspiration for writing.

A lucky penny found on the sidewalk can be a world of dreams to a young child. Although most grown ups usually won't admit it, that little found coin means something special to them too. There is something magical about finding that copper colored coin that other coins just can't equal up to. Pennies are wishes and wishes have the ability to change the world.

My little magic penny tale is a little off the wall, but it does fall under the category of wishes...Wishing wells and magic pennies.