My Good Friend James Tells (His Marketing Story)

I was one of those students who had a good GPA in school. However, it wasn’t because I studied really hard. It was because I had a naturally gifted mind for retaining knowledge by listening. This made it so I rarely had to study for any subject.

That was true in High School, but College was a completely different story. I went from being someone who rarely had study more than 1 hour on a subject, to spending multiple hours studying subjects that had little to nothing to do with my field. I would guesstimate that only 10% of what I learned in college had anything to do with what I used in the job market.

In my opinion, that is a waste of both my time and what was infinitely worse, my money. I have the student loans to prove it.

I was one of those students that only wanted to learn what I needed to know about a subject. I didn’t enjoy learning all the virtually useless details. I didn’t enjoy reading long boring material. Just give me the details I need to know. So I ditched the College experience for a Tech School.

It had its own flaws that I won’t go into here, but I gained a lot more of what I needed to know, instead of the BS courses they force on you in the General Education segment of the college experience. The tech school also had equal amounts of lab and classroom time. This presented a “sink or swim” atmosphere. If you force someone to apply the knowledge they learn, they will either know it or not. In the end as a teacher you will know one way or the other.

You can always guess in exams, but you can’t guess when you must get to a specific result in a lab. Now as far as Self Employment is concerned, I didn’t chase down that path over night. I wanted to get good grades as a student and follow a career path to success. I tried that, but in the end it did not work for me.

I ran into situations where in both major corporations and small businesses my ideas went either un-noticed or un-used. I’m not talking dumb ideas, from someone wet behind the ears. I am talking about good ideas from someone with ample experience in the subject revolving around the ideas.

Most employers would just flat out ignore my ideas. I only had an interest in bettering the business I was working for, but my ideas still went in the trash bin. Then there was the stability of my job. There were times when I didn’t know how long I would have a job. This lead me to believe my best route was self employment.

Through self employment I can point the business in whatever direction I feel works for me. I also don’t have to worry about stability. I know how to diversify my sources of income, and I know how to market a business very well. So I believe that GPA had little to do with my pursuing the self employment path.

It had more to do with my personality. I have never been one of those folks who liked following others. I have always been one of those people who were outspoken, and had that “I’ll forge my own path” attitude. I ignore what others say with those ”you’ll never make it” attitudes. I know I will have even more success that I presently have right now, because I am very driven and I am always striving to reach that next goal. Every time I reach a goal I set the standards bar even higher.

So if you had a rough time in school, or didn’t like school, or never went to college… Don’t worry, because no matter what ideas you have for a business, as long as you put your mind to it, you can accomplish your goals. Just forge your own path, and create your own destiny.

Top 10 Article Marketing Strategies

Strategic Article Marketing Tip 1 – Create a Captivating Title

Create a captivating title that draws the reader into clicking on your article link, whether it be from search engine result, syndicated location, or directly in the article directory it is published in. The purpose of this article marketing tip is to get the reader to click on your article link.

If you have a boring title, then why should a reader want to read your article? You haven’t even created an interest from the beginning, so the reader will think your article will be no different. You have to create a title that either interests them because it will show them how to do something they want to learn how to do or grabs at their curiousity because it is a contraversial topic they are interested in.

Strategic Article Marketing Tip 2 – Create a Keyword Optimized Title

Create a keyword optimized title that will get the search engine’s itsy bitsy spider’s juices flowing and crawling your content like crazy. It is one thing to get a reader to click on your article, but is another monster altogether to get search engines to spider your content. If you have only a major keyword in the title, then it might get indexed, but you could end up on page 55 of the results since you will be competing with the rest of the websites on the internet.

So it is critically important that you optimize your title to include both a major keyword and some long tail keywords as well. This way the search engine spiders will see that you are not only targeting the major topic or keyword, but you are also targeting a specific topic within that category. In return you will increase your rank on the major keyword and also be able to have a very good rank on the long tail keyword.

Strategic Article Marketing Tip 3 – Create a Keyword Optimized Article Body

Create a keyword optimized article body that is both properly formatted and double checked for both grammar and spelling mistakes. This is just a reiteration of the above article marketing tip. In addition to optimizing the title for both the major keyword and long tail keywords, you need to apply the same strategy to your main content of the article.

This doesn’t mean keyword stuffing should be used. You want to include a good balance of the major keyword with other relevant long tail keywords. Try to optimize it so you mention your target long tail keyword in each paragraph. Then mix it up by adding additional keywords that are both relevant to your main major keyword and your target long tail keywords. You want to make certain the keyword density of your target long tail keyword is the keyword with the highest density.

When you do this, as a result of not trying to stuff keywords in the article, using similar words and phrases related to your topic will create a natural linguistic flow. It won’t sound like you are purposely sticking words in the content. It will sound more like a natural conversation between you and the reader as if you were talking face to face.

Strategic Article Marketing Tip 4 – Create an Effective Author Bio and Resource Box

Create an effective author bio and resource box that doesn’t toot your own horn. You basically want to create them in a way that has the sole intention of getting the reader to click through to your website.

Have you ever seen those author bio’s that were just one big long “look at me… I am so great… buy my product”? Well that is exactly what you don’t want to do. In fact you don’t even want to try to sell the reader on anything in that box. You want get them to continue reading on, maintaining their interest in your content. This will dramatically increase the click through rate on your article.

If you keep their interest level high, then they are going to want to see what else you have to say on your website. The purpose of that box is not to sell something. It has the sole purpose of getting a visitor to come to your website. Always keep that in mind when you are writing your author bio.

Strategic Article Marketing Tip 5 – Do Extensive Keyword Research

This is just an expansion of the tips mentioned above about having keyword optimized content. You need to do extensive keyword research so your article marketing campaign will be effective in both the long and short term time frames. You want your research to insure sustainability in your marketing efforts. You don’t want to waste your time creating an article that will only be effective for a month. You want to create an article that will last for years to come.

This way if you are promoting an affiliate driven website or link then you will continue to see sales from that product on a long term basis. While this is good for long term you also want to keep in mind the benefit of creating a ninja attack on hot trends in the niche you are promoting to capitalize on a temporary increase in traffic.

But while doing that you need to create the article so it will last in the long term. You can always change the product that is being promoted or redirect the link you posted to something else. This strategy will create the most effective use of your time.

Strategic Article Marketing Tip 6 – Do Extensive Niche Research

Do extensive niche research so you are targeting the proper demographic of readers in your niche and so you know that you aren’t focusing your niche too narrow. This goes hand in hand with keyword research. While targeting micro niches can be a useful strategy, it isn’t the best strategy to use in article marketing.

You want to make certain that you are getting best and most effective use of your time. You can do niche research that will insure there is enough potential customers to convert into sales to support your efforts in your article marketing.

Now don’t get me wrong… If you are doing this because you just love to write, then knock yourself out. But if your purpose of article marketing is to make money online and not just to create a fan base for your content, then you need to do your research on the niche. While a few people may want to know about “basket weaving with organic materials” there may not be enough interest to drive traffic and create sales. By the way that is a totally made up niche.

Keep the focus of your article on a niche that will have enough demand to convert traffic into sales on a regular, consistent, and long term basis. Preparation is key in article marketing. If you do your research then you will create streams of income with a lot less work. You can still be successful without the research, but I guarantee that you will be wrting a lot more articles to create the same amount of traffic and sales than someone who has done their research.

Strategic Article Marketing Tip 7 – Do Extensive Product Research

Do extensive product and affiliate program research to make certain you know what is available to be promoted, and also who your competitors are for the product you are promoting. You want to make certain that you choose a product that will have a good balance of high conversions and high commission payouts.

Obviously if you have a product that has high conversions, then you want to make certain your commission is adequate. If you converted 50 percent of visitors into sales for a $2 commission, then you would have to put a lot more work and effort into promoting it than finding a product that had a $20 commission and may only convert at 25 percent. The key is to find a good balance between the two.

Another important aspect of this article marketing tip to keep in mind is that doing product research will protect your reputation. If you promote a product that is total garbage or a big scam, then that is going to be a direct reflection on the type of person you are. You may be a wonderful, honest and caring person.

However, because you didn’t do your research and the product you may be promoting turns out to be terrible the reader is going to remember exactly who recommended it to them. Sure they will know who the product creator was, but they will also know you recommended to them, and because of that will let everyone they know not to trust you. So it is very important that you research the products you promote.

Strategic Article Marketing Tip 8 – Do Not Put All Your Strategic Eggs in One Marketing Basket

Do not put all your strategic eggs into one article marketing basket. Obviously if you focus too much on one specific product or niche, then when that niche or product suffers a setback due to market saturation or consumers loss of interest, then you could see a dramatic drop in your income level.

To protect yourself from experiencing these kinds of fallouts that may be related to things like a major recall on a product or something similar, then try to balance your time between a number of different niches and products within those niches. That way when something like this happens, the effect it will have on you and your income will be minimal.

Strategic Article Marketing Tip 9 – Keep the Content Focused Based Upon the Article’s Purpose

Keep the content of your article focused based upon what the sole purpose of submitting the article was. For instance are you submitting the article to drive traffic to a link? Or are you submitting the article to get tons of backlinks to your site?

Obviously you can’t use the same approach for both purposes, so make certain you keep that in mind when creating your article. Higher quality content is more likely to get your article syndicated which will create backlinks to your website. More focused and to the point content will be more likely to create interest and increase click throughs to your website.

Strategic Article Marketing Tip 10 – Keep Your Content High in Quality and Uniqueness

In order to stand out from the crowd of article marketers, you absolutely must create content that is both high in quality and very unique. If you have 10 people writing about the exact same topic and promoting the exact same product or similar products you need to stand out. To do this you have to make certain that your content is unique and that is both accurate and high quality.

Quality articles provide accurate and useful information. This is the whole reason a user clicks on an article. They want to solve a problem or find out how to do something. If your article is vague or doesn’t provide enough information, what reason does the user have to click through to your site or read any other articles you have written for that matter? They don’t. So that is why it is important to keep your content quality very high.

Now if you have two similar articles that are high quality then it will always just be a toss up on which one the reader chooses. Sometime it will mean they read both, and other times it means that they will choose the first one they read and stop. This is where having accurate information comes into play. If you provide the most accurate information a reader will likely visit your site, and already have a sense of trust in you because of the fact that your article was accurate. This will help in creating conversions since people normally buy from people they can trust.

Now take it a step further and realize something else. If your website content is of equal quality of the article, this will create the best kind of traffic for your site. Not only will the visitor probably bookmark your site, but they will talk or blog about it to their friends. So from one good article you create multiple visitors to your site, which means multiple opportunities to convert a visitor into a sale.

My Belief’s On Being Rich

Working 10 to 20 Hours a Week

As much as we would like for this to be the case, it just isn’t possible, at least not initially. Eventually, after you have established a good team of workers you can trust to run things effectively it may be possible. Realistically you are looking at 50 to 60 hour weeks, when you first start out. That is if you expect to make millionaire status in less than 1 year. It is however possible to make really good money working these kinds of hours. Noone ever said you had to be a millionaire. Six figures is a lot of money, especially if it is invested wisely.

Just Selling Other Peoples Products in Already Saturated Markets

This is part of the eBooks, electronics, etc. demographic. Yes you can sell things like that and make good money, more than you would make at your day job if implemented correctly. You won’t become a millionaire from it, because there are just too many people already doing what you are doing. The guy/gal selling you on being a millionaire from this has been doing it from the beginning or at least a very long time. Yet, this is possible after several years of marketing efforts and developing your business have paid off. In this type of market you are still looking at 60 hour weeks for at least a few years. Well that is, unless your pockets are already bottomless pits full of money.

Just From Drop Shipping Products or Re-Selling Wholesale or Liquidation Products

You are going to have to implement a lot of strategies if you are going to sell products. You are going to have use every possible avenue of getting the cheapest products. You will have to sell drop shipped, liquidated, and wholesale products. You definitely won’t become a millionaire in twelve months from this. If you combine all of those strategies, then eventually you could become a millionaire from this. But like I mentioned above it is going to take working long hours and getting marketing efforts to pay off for that strategy to work.

Just Selling Products on eBay

eBay is a wonderful place to sell products, but without your own website also selling those products, you are in trouble. You won’t make enough on eBay to become a millionaire. The reason for this is because just about anything you think of is being sold on eBay. Yes you can find niches to exploit and things like that, but by the time you throw in listing fees, seller fees (ebay store, etc.) and other fees they throw at you, you are making a low income per product. After years of selling on eBay it is possible to reach millionaire status, but it takes a lot of work. The only advantage you have from using eBay is the amount of traffic their site gets. If you know how to leverage that traffic into sales, then yes it would be possible to become a millionaire from this strategy.

By Never Creating Your Own Products

This is more for the information products demographic. You are going to have to create your own products if you plan on making any real money. There are so many re-hashed products out there, that the only way to make serious money is to become a flat out expert in something and put your own spin on that knowledge. In other words, just create a niche out of thin air. I call it the “me, myself, and I” niche. You essentially put a touch on a product that noone else can. Most over night millionaires are made by some original product or idea they created. By over night I mean less than 1 year. So if you think being somones affiliate is going to get you there, you are mistaken. Most products released are first pushed down to the major JV partners in a deal, and they market it to their list. By the time you get around to being able to market it, the market is already close to saturation of that product.

Never Dealing With People i.e. Customer Service

You are going to have to get used to the fact that you will at some point have to deal with people. This will either be by phone, email, fax, or whatever method you have setup to communicate with your customers. This is just going to be part of the job. However, if you present yourself with the right products and right attitude you will have fewer customer service issues. Even though the idea of “AutoPilot” income is marketed like crazy, it is fiction. No income is automatic, you have to deal with a lot of factors to keep that income flowing in. This could be marketing or customer service or any number of other things. Adsense is about the closest thing to automatic income there is, but you still have to deal with things like SEO and CTR when you are doing that.

Just by using Adsense or Similar Programs

It is possible to become a millionaire from adsense, but you are going to have to know what you are doing with SEO, Traffic Generation, and several other factors. It is probably not possible in 12 months. It would probably take a few years to accomplish this task. Could you do this in one year? Anything is possible, but so is winning the Powerball Lottery Jackpot.

By Investing Little to No Money or Time at All

(you are probably on crack if you believe that one)

You are not going to get anywhere without investing something. Money will be the first thing you’ll have to invest. You are also going to have to invest a lot of time in learning about whatever method you are trying to use to make money online. You will have marketers pitching you these turnkey internet marketing systems, but they don’t exist. A lot of MLM marketers love this. They sell you on an idea of unlimited wealth from their “system”. They forget to mention that the only real way you will make money from this “system” is by selling other people on this “system”. Yes you could make money from whatever you are selling, but you almost always have to sell someone else on their system to make any money with it. I can’t speak for everyone, but I believe a lot of people are sick of these types scams. Yes, they may re-label it and call it “Network Marketing” nowadays, but it is just the same face with a different name.

By Not Knowing Any “Techie” Stuff

You are going to have to know about a lot of techie stuff, or you are going to have to pay someone to do it for you. Even if you pay someone, I don’t recommend it. You need to know a little, not a lot about every aspect of your business, especially the techie stuff. You need to know this, because if you lose your know it all techie, then who is going to make that techie stuff work? You don’t have to know all of the techie stuff, but it would pay you to know a little about HTML and web development. If you are doing business on the internet you need to know about how to make payments safe, or how to process payments at all on your site. I could write a whole article on the things you need to know about in this department. Noone said you had to do this work, but at least learn the tools so you know what that techie is doing, in case you have to explain it to a new techie.

By Tyring to Do it All By Yourself

(This is not possible at all)

I don’t know of any one person that has become a millionaire and did it all by themselves. They either had a mentor, or a partner or someone else that has helped them in some way. Even if you could do it all by yourself you are going to be working very long hours to do it. You hear of bloggers and forum owners making an absolute killing from their adsense and whatever else they have wrapped up in their site’s package. But you also hear of them working 12 hour days to keep it going. If you are one of those people that complained about working overtime at your dayjob, this is what you have to look forward to if you try to become a millionaire by yourself.

Figuring Things Out and Aces Up the Sleeves

Yes there are factors that could trump anything I have said in this article, but for the most part it is true. Big gurus will sell you on a pipe dream, and they will paint it up like it isn’t a get rich quick scheme. In the end, it is still a get rich scheme, even if it isn’t quick. If you put a lot of hard work, research and development, and marketing into your business then you will eventually be able to become a millionaire. It just won’t be easy. It is easy to make a decent living from the internet, but it isn’t easy being a millionaire at it.

5 Steps To Planning An Effective Postcard Campaign

Successful and effective postcard printing campaigns have one thing in common – they have a well thought of plan. No matter the size and form, your post card printing can benefit from your planning process because it will help you keep track not only your success but also the areas where your print postcards fail to reach out to your target clients.

To measure the impact your postcard printing can achieve, here are five steps to help you plan an effective post card printing campaign:

Step 1 – Ask questions. Plan later.

Even before you start planning your moves, you have to answer several questions first so you can eventually map out a better plan. Your answers would definitely help you concentrate and move towards one direction – that is to come up with an effective and responsive postcard printing for your target clients.

The most common questions you need to ask: What is your purpose in printing postcards? What do you expect to gain from your print postcards? Who do you want to attract? Who’s your target market? Is your objective to increase sales, or you want to promote brand awareness? Do you need to market your products instead? How often do you need to distribute your postcards to achieve your goals?

These are just few of the questions you need to answer. Remember though to be specific and focus on a particular target market. This way, you’ll be able to set up your post card printing campaign according to your available resources, so you can get the most positive response.

Step 2 – Determine your goal.

It’s time to draw what you would want to accomplish with your print post cards. How do you want to reach your target clients?

Establishing a goal for your marketing campaign can help you assess later on whether your postcards are successful or not. Your goal can help you determine what made you successful, as well as what went wrong with your ad when you are faced with a negative impression from your audience.

Step 3 – Decide on the specifications you need for your marketing campaign.

When it’s time to plan for your requirements, you need to start establishing what type of postcards you’re going to use, what size, and how many. Always remember that the postcards that your target clients see are reflections of you and what you have to offer. Choosing the most suitable postcard print to represent your image can go a long way in determining whether you’ll be recognized and remembered not only for a short time but for many years.

Step 4 – Determine the response time of your target clients.

Not only should you plan for your overall postcard campaign, you also need to determine a period for your target readers to respond to your ad. This can be reflected from your call-to-action. Include phrases such as “call now and get a prize”, “…while supply lasts” or “discounts until March 2009”. This way, you can keep track of how many target clients actually acted on your call.

Step 5 – Lay down the benefits.

Lastly, outline your benefits in your postcard printing. What’s in it for your target clients? What can they get in exchange for their time and effort?

A compelling content relies on the benefits you have for your target clients. An effective postcard campaign can only be successful when there are benefits to gain. At the end of the day, the benefits will convince your target clients to take what you have to offer.

Build A Smart Money Profitable Online Business

Are you successful with your Internet business? Better yet, do you think you are successful with your online business? When most online entrepreneurs are asked with these questions, they often brush it off. This is because most of them, who have not yet realize the right way to succeed in Internet Marketing, continue to believe that the mere fact that they have a website is already enough to succeed on the Internet.

The truth is, they all end up very upset because they fail to realize the secret behind the success in Internet Marketing.

Having a website is not a guarantee that your online business will succeed. How will you succeed if people will not realize that your business exist online? The key to Internet marketing is to get your business noticed.

An effective way to do this is to build an opt-in list. In fact, most of the people who are already experts in Internet marketing will tell you that building a highly targeted opt in list is the most effective and important tool in Internet marketing.

Basically, an opt in list is a list of email addresses of people who have agreed to obtain any kind of information from online businesses like you. The term “opt in” means that you have their permission to send to them whatever newsletters, brochures, or promotions that you have in your online business.

It is extremely important that you have their permission first before you send them information because unsolicited emails will be regarded as spam, and spamming is an illegal activity in the Net.

Because of the feasibility of building an opt in list on Internet marketing, most of the online entrepreneurs consider it as the most treasured tool online. They need this list in order to get the consumer’s attention and sustain interest.

By creating an opt in list, you will be able to maintain solid contact with your previous buyers at the same time boost your sales because of the fact that you have a sure target market always ready to purchase items from you.

Opt in list is considered to be the most important item in an Internet marketer. In fact, if in case something bad happens like emergencies and catastrophes and they could only save one item, it would be their opt in list saved on a backup disk.

Just imagine how these people value their opt in list. If this is the case, then it must be really something, right?

So, for people who are not yet aware of the importance of building a highly targeted opt in list and would like to know how to build them, here are some tips that could be very useful.

1. Decide on your niche market or your target market.

It is extremely important to know your target market in order to focus on something. It would be really confusing and time consuming if you will build an opt in list with no particular market in mind.

Moreover, having a niche market would bring more focus on your marketing campaigns and would derive better results because you have direct you emails to people who would most likely be interested in them.

2. Be sure that your selected target market is available in the Internet.

The mere acquisition of a niche market is not a guarantee that you can already start building your opt in list. Since, the concept of opt in list is specifically generated to aid in the growth of the Internet market of a particular entrepreneur, it is important to have a niche market that is available through the Internet.

The concept is basically simple, how can you promote your online business if your niche market is not available in the Internet? Hence, it is extremely important to verify if your target market is available online.

3. Verify if your chosen target market is income-generating market.

Building a highly targeted opt in list will just go to waste if your niche market is not generating any income at all.

Try to verify their income-generating potential through the search engines, wherein you will find some paid ads related to the keywords you have searched. This would only mean that if somebody is willing to pay to advertise focusing on the same target market that you have in mind, chances are, you will be able to reap positive results on your target market.

4. Generate solutions to the problems of your target market by using Internet forum.

Creating this type of forum will initiate the underlying solutions that will answer to most of your target market’s problem.

Through their posts and threads, you will be able to identify your target market’s problem and will be able to come up with a great solution. In turn, it will be very handy when you make your opt in list.

Indeed, the success of an online business or Internet marketing greatly depends on the opt in list. It is where the online businesses could come up with newsletters that would allow them to promote their products at the same time create the need for it. In turn, it will generate more income and make more money.

As they say, money is in the list that’s why most businesses consider opt in list as valuable as gold.

ProBlogging To Make Money Explained Here

A weblog (or simply blog) is a website that ‘publishes’ or features articles (which are called ‘blog posts’, ‘posts’, or ‘entries’), written by an individual or a group that make use of any or a combination of the following:

• Straight texts
• Photographs or images (photoblog)
• Video (videoblog)
• Audio files (audioblog)
• Hyperlinks

Usually presented and arranged in reverse chronological order, blogs are essentially used for the following purposes:

• Online journal or a web diary
• Content managament system
• Online publishing platform

A typical blog has the following components:

• Post date -the date and time of the blog entry

• Category – the category that the blog belongs to

• Title – the title of the blog

• Main body – the main content of the blog

• RSS and trackback – links the blog back from other sites

• Comments – commentaries that are added by readers

• Permalinks – the URL of the full article

• Other optional items – calendar, archives, blogrolls, and add-ons or plug-ins

A blog can also have a footer, usually found at the bottom of the blog, that shows the post date, the author, the category, and the ‘stats’ (the nubmer of comments or trackbacks).

There are numerous types of blogs. Some of them are the following:

1. Political blog – on news, politics, activism, and other issue based blogs (such as campaigning).

2. Personal blog – also known as online diary that may include an individual’s day-to-day experience, complaints, poems, and illicit thoughts, and communications between friends.

3. Topical blog – with focus either on a particular niche (function or position) that is usually technical in nature or a local information.

4. Health blog – on specific health issues. Medical blog is a major category of health blog that features medical news from health care professionals and/or actual patient cases.

5. Literary blog – also known as litblog.

6. Travel blog – with focus on a traveler’s stories on a particular journey.

7. Research blog – on academic issues such as research notes.

8. Legal blog – on law (technical areas) and legal affairs; also known as ‘blawgs’.

9. Media blog – focus on falsehoods or inconsistencies in mass media; usually exclusive for a newspaper or a television network.

10. Religious blog – on religious topics

11. Educational blog – on educational applications, usually written by students and teachers.

12. Collaborative or collective blog – a specific topic written by a group of people.

13. Directory blog – contains a collection of numerous web sites.

14. Business blog – used by entrepreneurs and corporate employees to promote their businesses or talk about their work.

15. Personification blog – focus on non-human being or objects (such as dogs).

16. Spam blogs – used for promoting affiliated websites; also known as ‘splogs’.

Blogging is typically done on a regular (almost daily) basis. The term “blogging” refers to the act of authoring, maintaining, or adding an article to an existing blog, while the term “blogger” refers to a person or a group who keeps a blog.

Today, more than 3 million blogs can be found in the Internet. This figure is continuously growing, as the availability of various blog software, tools, and other applications make it easier for just about anyone to update or maintain the blog (even those with little or no technical background). Because of this trend, bloggers can now be categorized into 4 main types:

• Personal bloggers – people who focus on a diary or on any topic that an individual feels strongly about.

• Business bloggers – people who focus on promoting products and services.

• Organizational bloggers – people who focus on internal or external communication in an organization or a community.

• Professional bloggers – people who are hired or paid to do blogging.

Problogging (professional blogging) refers to blogging for a profit. Probloggers (professional bloggers) are people who make money from blogging (as an individual blog publisher or a hired blogger).

Below are just some of the many money-making opportunities for probloggers:

• Advertising programs
• RSS advertising
• Sponsorship
• Affiliate Programs
• Digital assets
• Blog network writing gigs
• Business blog writing gigs
• Non blogging writing gigs
• Donations
• Flipping blogs
• Merchandising
• Consulting and speaking

The following are a few things that you need to consider if you want to be successful in problogging:

1. Be patient. Problogging requires a lot of time and effort, not to mention a long-term vision.

2. Know your audience. Targeting a specific audience or group is a key to building a readership.

3. Be an ‘expert’. Focus on a specific niche topic and strive to be the “go-to” blogger on that topic.

4. Diversify. Experiment with various add and affiliate programs that enable you to make money online (aside from blogging).

5. Do not bore your readers. Focus on the layout. White spaces, line spacings, and bigger fonts make a blog welcoming to read.

Certainly, it is possible to earn money from blogs. One just needs to take risks, the passion, and the right attitude in order to be a successful problogger.

How to Make Money by Blogging

At its most basic level, a blog is simply a way for you to get information onto the Internet. Of course, it is one of the easier ways for you to do so and once you have the blog established, you can upload your information with the click of a button. If you are trying to blog for commercial purposes, however, there are some specific steps that need to be taken in order to maximize your revenue. Here are the very basics of how to make money by blogging, but they are basics that you should never ignore. If you don’t take it any further than these basics, you will still see success but most bloggers tend to grow on knowledge that they already have.

The first and probably most important part of how to make money by blogging is choosing what type of blog you are going to have. The choice between the free blogging communities or hosting your own domain is difficult for some but think of it this way…In order to have a domain name, professional hosting and one of the best blog platforms that are out there, WordPress, you will need to spend anywhere from $15-$20. There will also be an ongoing hosting fee which is as little as five dollars per month. There is no other type of business with this much potential that can be started for so little.

Once you have your blog set up, which is an automated process in most cases, you need to decide what you’re going to blog about. Make sure that you focus on one particular subject as this is one of the biggest secrets of how to make money by blogging. After all, people that visit your blog regularly are going to expect information on the same subject. Give your visitors what they want and you will excel.

Finally, you want to make sure that you are blogging on a regular basis and that you are providing good information to your readers. These two things can help to set you apart from many of the junk blogs that are currently on the Internet. It is an important part of how to make money by blogging, and one that you would do well to follow regularly. From that point forward, it is simply a matter of continuing until you achieve the level of success that you desire.

How to Start Your Online Business With Drop-Shipping

By using drop-shipping firms to handle your orders, you could route all your ecommerce site’s orders to wholesalers, and they will drop shipped your order directly to customers. And you as the online retailer can eliminate the expense of carrying inventory and the risk of being stuck with the goods if these goods didn’t sell.

Before you get started, consider these seven steps involved in starting a drop-ship e-business:

Step 1: Decide to sell your products with or without your own website

You can start your drop-shipping e-business either with or without having your own website. If you decide to sell with your own domain name, then you need to get your ecommerce site up. If you do not want the hassle of getting your own ecommerce site, then you could build your online store at eBay. eBay e-store site builder allow you to build your online store easily.

Step 2: Decide products to sell

Then, you need to decide what types of products to sell at your online store. You could identify a group of products such as electronic products, household electrical appliances, cell phones & etc. It is advisable to identify similar products or products under the same category to sell instead of totally different category products such as shoes and CD player. Because, by selecting products within the same category, you can give your customers more choice to choose from, and you can group two or more products in a bundle for promotion or marketing activities and you get more sales on each transaction.

Step 3: Locate suppliers who will drop-ship for you

After identify your products to sell, you need to look for your drop-shipping suppliers. On time delivery is important to ensure the satisfaction of your customers; hence, be sure you check for the drop-shipper performance record before you sign-up an account with them. Discussion forum, message board and blogs are sources for you to find some hints or comment for the drop-shippers. Or you just simply key-in the drop-shipper name on the Google or Yahoo search box; you should get some information of your selected drop-shipper.

Step 4: Set up an account with the drop-shipper

Once you select a drop-shipping company, you need to set up a reseller account with the company. This can often be done online or by phone, but some companies will require that you complete and return a reseller application to open an account. Some may also require a tax ID and a business license. Most drop-shipping company will charge some fee to open their reseller account.

Step 5: Advertise the product for sale online

Many online retailers failed in their drop-shipping e-business because they could drive traffic or visitor to their website and convert these visitors to the actual paying customers. To get traffic to your product page (either your website or your eBay e-store), you need to advertise your products so that your products get exposure on internet and attract targeted traffic to your product page.

There are many ways to advertise your products. You could advertise on eBay, use pay-per-click (PPC) advertisement service such as Google Adword or Yahoo PPC. Or you could go for the cheapest but equally efficient way in driving traffic to your e-store: Article Marketing. You could write a review on your products in an article and put your e-store URL at the end of article or at the author resource box and submit them many article directories for maximum exposure. Many internet visitors will drop-by to your e-store via your URL link at the end of your article if they are interested to know more.

Step 6: The Product Sold & Place Order To Drop-Shipper

Once your have product sold, your customer will pay you on your selling price via your online payment system such as PayPal. And you place the order with your drop-shipper and pay them via their payment system at the agreed price, which is lower than your selling price, so that you could earn the profit.

Step 7: After Sale Follow Up

Many e-business entrepreneurs will miss out after sale follow up portion. Just because your customer has paid you and you have placed the order with the drop-shipper, it does not mean that this is end of the loop. Because if there are problem occur, you are the one who need to responsible in the eyes of your customers. Hence, you should follow up with your drop-shipper either via phone or email to ensure that ship out your order to your customer.

You should proactively follow up with your customer to ensure they have received their order and satisfy with it. Offer yourself as the personal contact for any issues that may arise. This is also a great way to sell customers more products because if your customers are satisfied with your service, they may give you repeat orders.

In Summary

By integrate drop-shipper into your e-business, you can forget about inventory handling issues and find a shipping partner to fulfill orders for you; all will be done by your drop-shipping partners. By following correct steps to set up your drop-shipping e-business, you can save your time and efforts in getting your business started faster.

Key Secrets to Personal Branding

Everybody wants to get involved in personal branding. I’m sure, each one of us dreams to be the centre of attraction of our industry. The trend is in brand.

Yes, Personal Branding has amazing power that can turn impossible into possible. It is a great way to gain exposure and popularity. But personal branding is much more than name and fame.

So what exactly branding is and how it can benefit you? It is to understand your own skills and passion. It welcomes opportunity to work with renowned personalities and be a name among them. It develops confidence, makes you more proficient.

Let’s take a quick look on what branding can do:
• You can build emotional and intellectual bond with your prospects.
• It increases your recognition in your industry/ niche.
• Assurance to deliver quality and satisfaction to your customers.
• Distinct yourself from your competitors.
• You got to learn, improve, and shape up your skills.
• Your message is clearly conveyed to the world.

Branding can connect you with your prospects; it gives a reason for trusting you. When you brand yourself, many eager people can get their answer to the questions like:
• Who are you?
• What are your skills?
• Why to connect with you?
• How do you help others?
• How can they reach you?

Branding is the backbone of any industry. Personal branding brings out ‘your unique you’. It has the capability to let your prospects recognize you and believe that only you have the solution to their problems.

Popular Entrepreneurial Ideas That Do not Work

There are so many reasons why people want to start out a business as there are as many reasons why people are afraid to get into it. For some, it is because of the perceived enormous risks, especially to the uninitiated, although to many it is the lure of a changed lifestyle, a feeling of independence and lets face it, the opportunity of better income and when done right, even wealth.

The greatest difficulty though is the starting.

Although at the outset, most potential entrepreneurs would never dream of failing, the facts though would eventually seep in.

We have often been told that 90% of businesses fail during the first year of operation and only a small percentage of the remaining ten-percent really make it.

There are many reasons for these failures. It would then be smart to look closely into these failed entrepreneurial ideas and take lessons as to why businesses fails if one is to increase the chances at succeeding. Some examples of failed entrepreneurial ideas are:

- Discover your passions and make a business out of it.
Nothing worthwhile in this world has really been achieved without passion and this is very true. However, there have been a lot of businesses built on a passionate desire to sell what one truly believes in that did not make it. Why? Because for all the passion built into it, the market is not primed for it. Another thing is…

- Over projection.
Enthusiasm is required if one is to succeed at any endeavor. It is the fuel that fires a person up. It is the motivation that serves as the driving force to start out into a direction and the energy that could supply the individual as the direction is taken. It is also the source, sadly, of frustration.

- Getting into a business that has been proven to succeed.
Let me site an example. When Internet was just starting, someone in my neighborhood started an internet shop. It did very well and so as with anything that goes well, someone started picking the idea up and opened a shop. It did okay and the idea caught fire. Soon another opened up. As could be expected, the shops started competing for the customers and prices were driven down. Soon afterwards, everyone has access to the Internet and most of the shops eventually closed. Get the idea?

Another example of an entrepreneurial idea that could seriously go wrong is getting into a similar business that someone has done successfully. Make a careful study because unbeknownst to you, you could be getting into a business that has better resources, is better funded, is a niche market that could produce goods faster, cheaper and of better quality. When you get into these niche businesses, you are already on an uphill climb the moment you start.

Even granting that the business that you are getting into is at par with what you have, you could be drawn to a constant head to head battle and when that is done, margins will be the first to suffer.

- Getting into a business for very strong profit motive. Now, what could be wrong with that? Ask any seasoned businessman and he’ll say everything. For one, marketing, merchandising and communication and other goodwill support that is so vital in making your goods compete in the marketplace could already suffer even at the start.

What could be done then?

Take stock of what you have and of what you are. There are things and characteristics unique in each of us that could be trimmed and tapered to the needs of the marketplace. This may be to simplistic but introspection is the first step. You are as different as the person sitting next to you. Surely there is something that only you could do best and in a unique manner that could be offered. Yes. This is another way of saying being passionate about what you do but take a step farther. What is it that will rub your passion on other people. Said another way, will other people really want to buy it? Or how would you make the market to want what you are offering? How would you make them react favorably?

Study, study and study some more. Know your competition and your market well. Do not underestimate the cost nor over project the sales. Nothing is really that new in today’s marketplace. Only the approaches and the processes could differ which could spell a marked difference when you put your personality into it and not someone else who have succeeded before you.

There is a sufficient supply of good books that are immediate for practical business application out there. Many times, when potentially good ideas fail, it could be because the person did not take that much time in discussing the ideas with someone else who is in the know and could be downright honest. It could also result from not coming out with a good business plan or has not taken that much investment at self-discovery and a myriad of other little things.

Finally, do not do things if the only reason that tempts you to do it is the profit motive. You could end up doing things you do not want to do which will not give you the energy required to stick to it.

For other things, there are online schools that could help you gain a better head start and help increase your chances at executing your entrepreneurial ideas.