November 27, 2005
Starting an Online Business : The Essentials
Author: Deanna Mascle
I have lost track of the number of discussion board posts and emails I have answered about that topic. I admit for those first venturing into the uncharted waters of internet business it can be challenging and more than a little daunting. There is a flood of products out there clamoring for your money and all claim to be absolutely essential to your success on the internet. Don’t buy it, they are all selling snake oil!
There are some essentials you will need (assuming that if you are reading this that you already have an email account and internet access) but you really can start out at the ground level with nothing but an idea and build your internet business up from there. You can start your business on a shoestring budget of just $10 a year. If you are ready for the fast track then you can start with as little as $10 month. If you are aiming for the penthouse then you can up your monthly budget to $30.
What are the essentials?
Ground level approach:
Create a blog account at one of the free blogging sites available online (we used to use Blogger.com but there are many other good options). This will serve as your internet base. It really is the cheapest and easiest way to get online today. Yes, you could create a free web site at one of the many available but blogs are more attractive to the search engines. Plus they offer you the ability to personalize it but most of your energy will be spent on content which is the king of the internet and the real reason you want an internet presence.
Now sign up for a free ClickBank affiliate acccount which will give you immediate access to something to sell —and the added advantage that many products also come with some handy content you can use to fill out your new blog. Sign up for a contextual or pay-per-click advertiser such as Google’s Adsense or Chikita and you’ll start earning from visitors as well as customers.
That’s it! You are now in business. Keep filling your blog and promoting it as well and you will soon start earning!
Shoestring approach:
This method is similar to the previous approach with one crucial difference — you purchase your own domain name. A domain name will cost you between $5 and $10 a year depending on whether you go .com or .info (or one of the many other options available). You don’t need to find a web host or create a site. Simply point the domain at your blog for now and continue with the development and promotion of your blog. The advantage of owning your own domain name is simply that later when you have the money, time, and knowledge to develop your web site that domain name will already exist and have filtered through the search engines. It also offers some marketing advantages that a free blog cannot.
Fast-track approach:
You host your own domain and offer your blog either as the site or as an addition to the site. You should be able to do this for between $10 and $20 a month with a reputable host that offers all the tools and utilities you might need for your current site. Maybe down the line you’ll need to upgrade but by then you’ll know your income and your needs.
Penthouse approach:
You add one final tool that will make your internet business complete — a mailing list tool. You can do this for just $20 a month and it will be worth every penny for sales, customer service, and promotional tool.
That’s it for just $90 you can have every tool you need to make hundreds or even thousands from your internet business and you can actually get by with a lot less than that for your initial startup.
Two final notes.
First, I did not include any budget in here for advertising because there are a lot of free ways you can get started advertising and promoting your site and I would recommend exhausting those options before you begin looking into spending money on advertising. By that time you may well have started to earn a profit from your internet venture and so you can have a better idea of the size of your advertising budget.
Second, if you plan to sell products yourself then you will need a payment processor. You can sign up for free with PayPal so that is no additional expenditure (you pay a percentage of each sale so it is self-funding) or you can sign up for vendor account with ClickBank which will cost you a one-time fee of $50 plus a percentage of each sale. I would not lay out a lot of money for a shopping cart program or one of the other programs that charges a monthly fee. I have done business with PayPal and ClickBank as my exclusive payment processors since 1999. Every so often I will investigate my other options and every time I stick with these simple, effective programs.
Good luck with your new internet venture!
About the author: Deanna Mascle is happy to offer her recommended Internet Business Tools as well as other advice about Doing Business Online. Internet marketers can also subscribe to her internet marketing newsletter Establish Your Epresence.
Posted by Richard at 07:21 AM | Comments (0)
November 17, 2005
Dishonest Affliate Programs
Author: Kevin Nobleman
When selling affiliate products in your online store, avoid these common online affiliate scams. I lost a ton of money promoting useless non-paying affiliate programs until I found these guys. It’s time to learn the truth about affiliate products and sales from someone who KNOWS the business!
If you want to sell products as an affiliate, where do you look? There are all kinds of affiliate programs to join on several major affiliate networks. There’s likely to be lots of decent sales generating affiliate companies right?
Not true, according to Adam Fisher, the Affiliate Product Sourcing Editor for Net Worth Radio:
When you see all these “Incredible” affiliate companies and programs and products of affiliate networks on the internet, promising phenomenal sales and offering commissions ranging anywhere from 5% to 50% or more, what you’re seeing is 99% junk.
There are thousands of scammers, snake oil salesmen and con artists on the Internet who are just lying around waiting to AMBUSH you when you begin looking for REAL affiliate programs to do business with. Believe it or not, there is a whole niche industry built up on the Net around this kind of scamming! The folks who run these scams have all the moral fiber of a box of hair, and the only reason they even recognize the word ‘Scruples’ is from the TV ad for the party game.
You may have even fallen prey to one of these con artists, selling you on their “exclusive” affiliate programs as if they are the greatest money-makers since the internet bubble burst. Me too. I’ve joined so many programs that I can’t even recollect how many. I don’t know why, but I tend to find the “good” in people, and I was “sold” by these marketing schemes time and time again, even after being scammed by the latest one. Finally, after so much disappointment and frustration, I had HAD ENOUGH. I decided to get to the bottom of this appeal we all have with online affiliate companies, and find out if there really were any PROFITABLE ones for selling “hot” affiliate goods at premium prices.
I literally contacted the administrator of every affiliate website I could find. Posing as an investor, I managed to persuade the owners that I was seriously interested in purchasing their entire website and business. That way, once the cartoonish bags of money flashed in their heads, they would grant me free access to their member’s areas to examine what I would be “selling”. Well, I was appalled with 99% of what I found. Many of the owners actually bragged about how many people joined their useless non-paying affiliate programs. I repeatedly found:
*outdated links
*non-working links
*links leading to other sites that wanted you to sell crap
*no help section
*no real email support
*few if any sales
I quickly realized that these so-called affiliate networks were totally pointless. And the owners knew it, yet they were laughing all the way to the ATM machine! Needless to say, I didn’t respond when they asked if I was still interested in purchasing their websites. Surprisingly, while sitting through all of the scam artist’s websites, I was able to locate a group of individuals that actually ran profitable and legitimate programs.
The owners were common folk like you and me that found a way to earn extra money working from home on their computers. Their membership areas were impressive, with a great deal of quality information on how to make $100-$200 per day on your computer doing very little work. I even chatted with a few of their affiliates in several online forums, and they confirmed that they were earning extra money using the information, support and products that the affiliate websites had provided them. It was like I found a few diamonds in the rough. But don’t take my word for it, you can drop by the over one dozen sites I found. See what you think.
They DO NOT charge a minimal fee for access to their program, which is to be expected for any legitimate program that actually has people on staff who are dedicated to helping you get earning online. What a warm group of people! Anyway, if you do decide you are interested in any of the dozen companies, I advise you to join post-haste, as the owners have informed me that they are getting so many new affiliate members by word of mouth referrals, that they will be blocking off membership completely by month’s end. (By the way, you didn’t receive this news from me!) They don’t have a large enough staff to welcome many more people, and they are driven to providing excellent service to each person. Well, my quest to find legitimate online affiliate programs has come to an end. I have to mention I was profoundly disappointed with most of what I found, and I strongly urge you not to take any chances doing business with any companies other than the twelve I will share with you.
Whatever you do, I hope you and your loves ones have a healthy, prosperous year.
Take care and I wish you all the best.
About the author: Kevin Nobleman has researched and uncovered numerous scams in the corrupt online affiliate industry. He has written special articles to help people avoid affiliate scams. However, Kevin has also discovered over a dozen legitimate affiliate programs, networks and buyer/seller communities he would encourage you to do business with. He provides this report in a valuable information package on his website, http://www.restaurantandbar.org/scams.html
Posted by Richard at 05:24 PM | Comments (0)