Home Based Business

The biggest mistakes I see a newbie to internet marketing do is to go after the big keywords like home based business or starting a home based business without any thought as to what or how they will rank on page 1. Based on the latest updates by Google and the more I study SEO techniques, the more I realize that its probably best for most people to start with go after the low lying keywords.

So what is your SEO strategy or do you even have one?

The reason for the high failure rate for most businesses is the lack of the so called quick money for internet marketers. The see a glossy ad popping up telling them if they only fill out there name and email address, they can get access the the secrets to making a killing online. Then when the newbie gets the email, clicks on the link, they tell them how they can make 10k a month with little to no work involved. Ah the secret is out or at least that’s what you thought as a newbie.

The key is to first realize there’s really no quick money per se unless you understand what you are doing and willing to start investing 30 to 40 hours per week on top of your full time job commitments. Then and only then if you pick the right keywords with decent CPC with low competition, can you pick up some so called easy money. But be warned, this is typically not the case.

But here’s an interesting thought. What if you picked some really low competitive long tail keywords that say had 100, 250 or 500 searches per month. Now you might be thinking, why would you waste your time and money on something like that. But here’s the deal. What if those low competitive, low lying fruits were easy to obtain page 1 rankings in only 2 to 4 weeks? Now, what if you get page 1 and start to earn 5 to 10 bucks per day? Now after a month or 2, you start to build that up to 10 to 20 bucks per day. All of a sudden in 2 or 3 months, you are earning 300 to 600 bucks. Big deal – right? Well, that can buy a lot of extra personal keyword rich websites plus outsourcing some of your content writing. Now, you might be thinking, hey that doesn’t sound too bad.

That’s the point, the more that I uncover about how people make money online in starting a home based business, the more that I realize, going after the big keywords is simply a fools games. The reason is because getting page 1 on a major keyword for something like home based business or make money may take you a minimum of 18 to 24 months before you see any benefits. Most people don’t have the stamina to do that. Hence the reason for the high failure rate.

By utilizing a strategy of really low competitive keywords, like how to start a home based business, you may be able to make 500 to 1000 bucks way quicker in a shorter period of time. Then you just keep repeating the process for your niche marketing area and before you know it, you have an authority site that you can look at going after the big keywords. I see too many people fixated on them and waste their time and efforts doing so.

More and more people are going the way of really focused niche marketing efforts, realizing they can make some relatively quick Google Adsense money or Chitika money.

I was reading some article’s today and came across one about being productive. Now we all know this first hand, that we probably get high marks for procrastinating and not really getting what we know we should be. It’s Saturday night and what am I doing? I was actually watching a movie called The Matrix. Great movie by the way and realized after about 15 minutes into it, hey I didn’t get my monster article done today. So rather than sit back and watch any more TV. I decided to sit down in front of the computer with no distractions and get this post done.

You see, until I am making the kind of money I want, I am wasting my time watching TV. Now some of you might think watching TV and making money is at opposite ends of the spectrum and you may be right. On the other hand, getting some time away from the computer to re-charge your mental batteries is equally important.

So my question is; How do you get more productivity out of your day?

Well, the simple answer is stopping doing non-productive things like watching TV or going to a movie. Instead, when you first start your day, sit down and actually do some planning on what you want to accomplish. This goes hand in hand with making money in a home based business.

One of the best lessons I learned today was actually going off-line, grabbing my lap top and start writing my articles. You see without distractions, you can probably get those tasks done that you need to every day if you really get organized. Every day, most of us are reading emails, reading some new articles or visiting our favorite forums. There are a couple of really good make money and starting a home based business sites that I enjoy reading. But in all honesty, what if they shared some new insights into SEO etc? Well, that may satisfy my mental appetite, but certainly does zip for getting any actual work done.

So I decided that I would not read any posts or go to any forums until I got my other priorities completed. That way, I treat it like a reward after the hard work is accomplished. I think if more of us structured our time like that, we would find we were actually making money in our business.

However, just sitting down without any real road map can equally be a waste of time. So you need to plan your day, week and month out properly. Some say plan out your entire internet marketing plan for an entire year. Wow, that seems hard core. But you know what? That is what we all really need to start consider doing to really kick ourselves in the butt and take action.

Some final tips on being more productive.

Plan out your day and what you want to accomplish.

Decide how many articles you can realistically complete each day, especially if you work full time.

What keywords are you focusing on today for your articles?

Where are you going to post?

Where are you going to get those all important back links from?

By being more organized, going off the grid (the internet), and avoiding the deadly pitfalls of distractions, you will get much more done in a shorter period of time than you thought possible for your home based business opportunity. Now back to watching the Matrix, now that my work is actually finished. By the way, from start to finish, I completed the article in about 30 minutes.

We have all heard about people having sports coaches, financial coaches, learning coaches – right? But when have you heard about an internet coach for your internet home based business? You see, with the flux of the internet, it’s almost impossible to stay on top of the day to day things changing on the internet.

So what can an internet coach do for you?

They can cut your learning curve dramatically – that’s what they can do. Is it really necessary to have a coach for your internet home based business? Well, that depends on current level of knowledge. You see, learning how to do it properly will take a tremendous of time and effort on your part to learn the necessary elements to be successful to make money online.

Understanding and knowing our limitations is the door to wisdom. Many people don’t like to admit they don’t know something for fear that they will look stupid. We can’t know everything and people that are really interested in helping you will take the time to help you. Even if you are a successful business person, going into unchartered territory can be overwhelming.

So what should an internet coach cover for your home based business?

I would recommend that you find out first what is your baseline of knowledge for online marketing.

In other words, what do you know about internet marketing?

As a coach, some of the basics that are very critical in the beginning is to understand

What is search engine optimization?

What is search engine marketing?

What keywords should I use?

How to I buy a domain?

Where should I be hosting my domain?

What is the purpose of article writing?

Where are the best places for posting articles to?

Google has specific requirements to rank on page 1 of organic search results. What is organic search results. It means that when you go to Google, type in a phrase like home based business, home based business opportunities, make money, baking brownies etc., you will get a number of search results back from Google. Sometimes, its a few thousand result, other times its tens of millions search results.

That leads into Search engine optimization as its the methods used to rank on page 1 of the major search engines. That should always be your goal by the way. You won’t get much traffic on page 2 or make money. Ok, you might make a little money on page 2, but it diminishes quickly being off page 1. In fact, most of the people online will pay attention to the top 3 to 5 spots. So aim high when building your online presence.

SEM is really one in the same as SEO because you it means to gain or increase your visibility online. So when you see the terms used, they really are one in the same point of reference. That is to get your website to the top of page 1.

One area that all of us need to understand is picking out keywords. This one activity will be the cornerstone of what you do for a long period of time generally. Why? Because if you are going after small long tail keywords, then it may only take a few days to a few weeks to accomplish that goal. But if you are going after any competitive keywords like home based business opportunity or make money online, then it will likely take you 12 months or longer to achieve page 1 results.

You can go to Google’s keyword free selector tool and type in your phrase. It will give you results on a monthly basis. Remember, this is only an estimate and often times, its just incorrect. You just need to know that advertisers are going to pay for a particular keyword phrase if you plan on using Google Adsense or Chitika Ads. If you go to G, type in the phrase. Then look to the right side of the page and see if anyone is paying to advertise based on that keyword phrase.

If you see at least 6 or more ads on that page, then I would recommend its a pretty good keyword phrase. If that phrase is on more than 1 page, its even better for you. Don’t go out and buy some keyword selector tool because its not necessary and a waste of money. I used the paid version of Wordtracker and never got any real different results than the free stuff. It only has a few more bells and whistles that you don’t need to make money online.

To buy a domain, just go and type in domains, domain registration and you will get thousands of results. I use Go Daddy and have never had a problem. Their prices are competitive to most other companies. What you need to be aware is do they offer 24/7 live telephone support. If they do, great. If they don’t, then what happens if you have problems? Right, you have to send them a support ticket via email. It works, but I just have never felt comfortable with that limitation.

I do use GoDaddy to register my domains, but I really don’t like their actually back office hosting. That’s my opinion. I found that Hostgator seems to be one of the best and I have never had any problems. If they do arise, I have the option to send them a support ticket via email or if its more serious, I can pick up the phone and call them 24/7. But there are dozens of good companies out there, so don’t get bent out of shape if you use another hosting company. I am giving you my real time experience as of today after using Hostgator for 18 plus months.

The biggest part and the one that involves the actual work is writing articles. You might be thinking, wait a minute, I can’t write articles. Then your choices are to either hire someone to ghost write your content, start learning how to write your own content or quit. Sorry, you may be thinking that’s a bit harsh, but its the truth. If you can’t do 1 of those activities, then you can’t make money in a home based business.

I know of many people that could not write if there lives depended on it at the beginning. The only way you will get good is by doing, not reading. If you want to learn to swim or ski, then you need to actually just do it – like the Niki commercial. Sorry, no shortcuts to success here folks.

What if you are stuck for ideas on what to write?

Ah very good question and here’s some ideas to generate ideas. Go and type in the area that you are interested in. For example, say you wanted to know how to renovate a bathroom. I would type in how to renovate a bathroom or how to renovate a bathroom tips and see what results I get. Find an article that can give you some ideas or tips. Then based on the tips, write it in your own words.

Now some people may consider that to be stealing someone’s ideas. I disagree for a reason. It’s all re-circulated content, but in a individual’s own perspective. So don’t copy there content, just get some ideas flowing. Then write it in your own words.

The top place to initially post your content by far is Ezine Articles. They have tremendous authority and millions of unique visitors each month. In fact, the last estimate I read was 15 million unique visitor each and every month. That’s why they are a powerful place to post unique quality content. Don’t ever try and submit duplicate content, because they manually check each article.

In the beginning, its an incredible amount of work to build an internet home based business. Most of the time, you will actually be writing content and posting it online to give your website presence online and brand your name.

As time goes on and you make some money, you can look at other ways to offset your time writing by hiring ghost writers. Those are people that for a fee, will write an article about your subject. I do this all the time. Pay people to write quality articles and post them at various article directories. Now I do write some of my own content, like this post because I like to write long monster posts and cover many aspects of internet marketing. I would recommend that you do some writing yourself for awhile. Then look at the other options.

When you start to make 10 or 20K a month, you may even look at hiring out someone to do all your posting to article directories etc. For additional places to post, just type article directories on G and you will get plenty of places to post.

Being coachable is critical to your long term success. If you look at successful people like sports, finance, real estate etc., you will discover that in all cases, each person had a mentor or coach to help them along the way. Finding that coach that we trust and admitting we need help is a huge quantum leap for many people to make. There you have it, some ideas and tips for choosing to work with an internet coach.

To Your Success

I was reading the morning news and noticed one article from the news paper complaining about the national unemployment rate hitting 10.2 percent in the US. Most economists have predicted that despite the stimulus spending, job growth will always lag behind economic growth. Makes sense – right?

The systemic problem that I continue to see as a major hurdle is a reliance on people looking for a job instead of investing in their own future. Part of that problem seems to be apathy. People are fed up and upset because the government didn’t give them a job. News flash, nobody owes you a job or a living. You are responsible for your life, not someone else. Governments can create incentives for companies to want to do business in a particular country, state or local city. The idea that somehow my government is responsible is ridiculous.

The good news is that as the economy tanked in the past year, home based business ideas are flourishing. Would you like to know why? It’s because you get to control your future and not some be left to stress about having a job next week. Oh sure, starting a home based business is not for most people, but why not? It certainly could be if you took the necessary time to educate yourself about the basics in having a home based business.

Being involved in home businesses for the last 15 years, I certainly have learned my fair share of hard valuable lessons along the way. I had made plenty of mistakes as well.

Here’s a few things that I have learned to assist you in making an informed decision when looking for the right home based business opportunity.

The Company – how stable is the particular company that you are thinking about getting involved in? In other words, has the company just started up operations or have then been around for a few years. Most start-ups by the way won’t last in this industry due to competition.

Products or services – are they unique or in high demand? Most people checking out a company’s products or services don’t spend enough time really thinking about the market potential in my opinion. They sometimes get pressured to make a decision. I agree if you are thinking about getting involved in a business that costs less than $100, it’s not a big deal in my mind to go for it, if you have done some preliminary homework on the business model etc. If the price is significantly higher, then certainly you need to invest more time in getting your questions answered.

Management – how seasoned is the management team? I have seen many instances in which a company gets started only to fail in the first couple of years due to a lack of experience in the corporate office. To have stability and long term viability in any business, requires experience management period. Don’t short cut this process if you are starting a business. Make sure you base your decision to hire someone based on their experience. After all, if you are investing any significant money, you need to be prudent.

Training and Support – this is a huge and critically important area to make everything work. Without front office support and proper training, individuals trying to start a home based business opportunity will find it next to impossible to succeed. I have seen way too many companies fail in this one area and only to see thousands of individuals dreams and aspirations destroyed because of greedy owners. We are talking about people’s lives here, so pay attention owners. Give the proper training and support. In return, you will have a long term viable business.

With the internet becoming such a prominent role in most home businesses to make money, it’s absolutely important to have the proper IT structure in place. I remember one company that has been around for over 20 years utilizing out of date technology for many years. In the past few years, this company, which I won’t mention has turned around the IT foundation to become one of the leading companies in state of the art technology. They are constantly updating and investing in new equipment. In fact, this company has probably invested over 40 million dollars in just the past 3 years. This is an example of what to look out for when checking out companies.

I only go with companies that have the necessary equipment and technology in place, because I like utilizing the internet as the main way to promote any home based business.

Upline Support – Leadership – who is going to be your coach? We all need coaches or mentors in life. Part of the building process that I learned many years ago is to ensure one has a coach or mentor to assist them. Without one, you are on a uphill battle. Whatever company you ultimately decide, make sure you have good support from the leaders above you. Work daily with your coach.

Can you build your business via the internet? You would be surprised, but there are still many companies that do not allow direct advertising of their businesses. Part of the problem is a failure by the affiliate member making exaggerated claims on making money. The FTC has new rules in place and you better know up front that the old days of making exaggerated claims is gone. If you do and they find out, they will shut you down. If you live in another country, they can still go after your host provider or the company directly if they are in the US. So do yourself a favor now and don’t be a noob in making false claims.

Bottom line, if any company doesn’t allow you to utilize the power of the internet, I won’t even look at doing business with them. I don’t care how great there products or services are. I use the internet and it’s the way I do business. Many people like the other approaches like personal contacts, having 1 on 1 meetings. I find it archaic to build a business with so much great technology available today. I do see more companies having better videos that you can upload to your personal website and more companies are being forced to go this route if they wish to stay competitive.

Those companies that don’t adapt and change, will be left in the dust. Entrepreneurs have become busy savvy and demand much more from companies.

Compensation Plans – what type and how much are they paying out? This is probably the most problematic for most companies. Paying out a reasonable amount to stay competitive, yet being able to make a decent profit. Based on figures, it would seem that around 50 percent is a reasonable amount for both the affiliate member and company owners. After all, they took the risk and set up the infrastructure for your benefit. If a company states they will pay out anything about 50 percent, you really need to examine that, because in my opinion anything above 60 percent is a danger point for you and the company to stay viable long term.

So after you decide to go with a company, now what?

In other words, you need to formulate a plan of attack on how you will build your actual business. Like I stated above, I use the internet because I have the expertise to do so. Other’s may not be comfortable or have the necessary knowledge and will do it other ways like calling up their friends, family or buying leads. This is where the real work starts. Everything else you have done up to this point is gathering information, learning about the company and products.

The number one priority of any business is prospecting. It’s all a numbers game. Those that expose their business to the most people win. Plan and simple. People tend to over complicate this important and critical part of the process. They discuss at length, about saying this or that and what happens if the person sez this, what do I counter with.

The only way to get really good at prospecting is by actually doing it. Don’t try and shortcut this process, cause it will be an expensive and time consuming experiment if you do. Trust me, been there and done that. I got really good at prospecting because I have talked to literally thousands of people on the phone over the years. I never said having financial independence was easy, but it’s worthwhile.

If you don’t like the old fashion ways of building a business, like talking to friends and family or buy leads, then have a look at some other home based business ideas within a team environment

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