CHOOSE ONE OF FIVE BUSINESS MODELS FOR YOUR WEBSITE

Author: David Bain
1) Physical Product

If you sell a physical product, your customers must either be able to buy your product directly from your website or request more information about your product from your website. Check out services like Clickbank, and Prostores to find out the best means of selling your wares.

2) Service

If you offer a service, your customers need to understand exactly what your service entails, and what differentiates you from the competition, within the first few lines on your website. In addition, you need to give your customers a reason to part with their contact details and other personal information so that you can build up your database. Additional "Free Information Product" revenue generation methods detailed below may also be relevant.

3) Free Information Product

If you offer a free information product, your product needs to be interesting, informative and relevant to the consumer. It also needs to be based on in a field where you can monatize (generate a revenue stream from) your content and offer relative products and services based on contextual adverts like Google Adsense or the Yahoo Publisher Network. Affiliate links from brokers such as Commission Junction and pay per click impulse merchandising specialist, Chitika should also be considered.

4) Information Product for sale

If you wish to offer an information product for sale, you need to be a specialist in your field, with a unique angle in a marketplace willing to pay for new information. However, you still have to give some content away for free. You have to whet your readers' appetite for more. A good idea is to aim to collect email addresses to begin with. Then you can stay in touch with your future customers until they make a purchase. When aiming to sell an information product, you can still use contextual and affiliate advertising. But bear in mind where the majority of your income comes from. Make sure that you test whether or not conversion rates mean that you should actually be giving away everything away free and relying on advertisements for your income.

5) Any Combination of the above

Offering a combination of the above may appeal to more consumers and help you gain a faster and stronger reputation in the marketplace. However, unless you're able to concentrate full-time on this project you're probably better to focus on as precise and unique a proposition as possible.

"HOW TO MAKE YOUR COMPUTER YOUR PERSONAL ATM"

Author: Matt Bacak
Do you think that ATM's are only available at banks and credit unions? Think again. Your computer can become your own personal ATM machine. How can you turn your computer into a money making machine? Jump into the world of internet marketing. An Internet marketing business is not only profitable, but can be started quickly and affordably.

What should you do first to help you start an Internet marketing business? You need to create a website that reaches millions of potential customers all over the globe. There are hundreds of software programs, companies, and offerings out there. If you are not familiar with Internet infrastructure then you may have a difficult time trying to find the right company to host your website. We have taken the confusion out of this situation for you by providing references for the best software tools to help get you started.

First, you will need a domain name. Domain names are the text that users will type into the Internet to access you website. Think carefully about your domain name so that it is relevant to your product or service. Once you have a domain name in mind, you need to make sure that it is not taken. You can type it into your Internet browser and see if anything comes up. However, it is good to check this through the domain provider we recommend which is www.godaddy.com.

When you purchase a domain name at www.godaddy.com, make sure that you only purchase the domain name and none of the extra services. Godaddy has a tendency to jack up the prices on these services when you can find them much more affordably at www.frontierpowerhosting.com.

Frontierpowerhosting.com will be your web hosting service. This web hosting Service Company is top notch because you receive your OWN IP address. It is critical to have your own IP address so that your emails are never blocked due to an email spammer that has the same IP address. Frontierpowerhosting.com also has excellent customer service phone support. In addition, Frontierpowerhosting.com provides an "Email Tracker" feature which enables you to track your emails. Frontierpowerhosting.com also will provide you with information regarding the deliverability rate for any emails you send. This information will help you tailor your marketing efforts.

Next you will need to setup a "smart Autoresponder". A smart Autoresponder is one that automatically sends emails or forms to users in order to capture their personal information. Make sure that your Autoresponder captures the following information: first name, last name, email address, time and date stamp.

An effective smart Autoresponder is called "Auto Responder Plus" which you can find at www.arp3.com. Auto Responder Plus is software that you can download on your web hosting account.

Once you have these tools in place, you are ready to create your website. Change your personal computer into a cash cow today!


Matt Bacak, The Powerful Promoter and Entrepreneur Magazine e-Biz radio show host, and now a "#1 Best Selling Author" in just a few short hours, has helped thousands of clients target his specialty, opt-in mail direct marketing systems. The Powerful Promoter is not only a sought-after internet marketer but has also marketed for some of the world's top experts whose reputations would shrivel if their followers ever found out someone else coached them on their online marketing strategies. For more information, visit Bacak's site at http://www.powerfulpromoter.com or sign up for his Powerful Promoting Tips at http://www.promotingtips.com

WHAT IS THE EXIT STRATEGY FOR YOUR WEB BUSINESS?

Author: David Bain
You need to decide on your Internet business future if you haven't done so already. You're likely to be considering four options:

1) Keep on growing the business as a sole operator and live off the profits

There are already thousands upon thousands of people who have started an Internet business by themselves, have developed an excellent online income, and have no employees. Take Markus Frind for example who started the free dating site PlentyOfFish.com in 2003 and now earns $10,000 US a day with very little overhead and no employees. Also, Michael Cheney - author of the Website Marketing Bible - made $250,000 in one week from the sale of his 'Adsense Videos'. Is it really worth the hassle of employing people?!

2) Start employing people with an aim to own a bigger and better business

Although it may not be as easy as it was in 1999 to get your hands on some venture capital, if you can start an online business and prove that the business model works, you still have a good chance. Make sure that it's not for vanity's sake though. Meetings with potential investors can take your eye off the ball. Anyway, is it not possible to build your business further without any additional investment?

3) Start employing people and growing the business with an aim towards IPO

An Initial Public Offering (IPO) happens if you choose to launch your business as a public company. If your goal is world domination, this one's for you. Bear in mind, though, that it's common for investors to stipulate that a more experienced management team is necessary to excite the marketplace. Shares belonging to a public company can be freely traded.

4) Sell the business as soon as possible

For many people, their goal is to be bought out by a larger competitor. If you have a tight grip on a particular regional market, niche industry or market segment, then you're making it a worthwhile proposition for a larger company to buy you out. In their view, it may be a lot more beneficial for them to buy your customer base and goodwill instead of starting afresh. If you want to sell out, you need to consider what your unique selling point is as well as subtly making potential purchasers aware of what you have to offer.

About the author

David Bain is founder of the independent business articles resource, www.BuildYourOwnBusiness.biz. BuildYourOwnBusiness offers the latest business news & management advice on how best to build your own business - business articles on Strategy, eBusiness, Change Management & much, much more.

WEBSITE VISITOR STATISTICS - WHAT INFORMATION DO YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR SITE?

Author: David Bain
You need to keep on top of who is referring your visitors to you, what kind of technical capabilities their computers have, where your visitors are form, how long your visitors are staying with you, which pages your visitors are viewing, whether or not conversion goals are being reached.

1) Find out who is referring visitors to you

These referrals generally fall into three categories: paid advertising, search engine traffic and natural linking. If you rely too heavily on paid advertising then you need to aim to increase the other two areas. If you rely too heavily on one search engine, and especially one search which only refers your visitors to your home page, then you need to encourage deeper linking as well as researching the reasons why you are only listed with the one search engine.

2) Find out what kind of technical capabilities your users' computers have

You need to make sure that the majority of your audience can view your website in the manner that you intend them to see it. If your website is tailored towards an end user with too high a 'computer spec', then you must consider how your website will load and view with a lower screen resolution, older browser, different browser and low-speed connection. Likeways, if your website is too basic, then it may turn off too many people - people who prefer a flashy, 'more professional' website. It's up to you to ensure that you strike a balance and appeal to as many people in your chosen market segment as possible.

3) Find out where your visitors come from

What's the point in tailoring your product or service offering towards Canadians if all your visitors come from the USA? You need to analyse on a regular basis whether or not your visitors have the potential to make you any money. If not, you need to do two things. This first is, be a lot more proactive with local and category specific marketing. Appear in more directories and discussions relevant you your industry. The second thing is to ask yourself the question, 'How can I use these visitors to my advantage?' Take time to think about how you could sell any products or services to these people. The least that you could do is collect their personal preferences and contact details with a view to forming a strategic alliance with another company, and making use of the information in the future.

4) Compare your statistics with your competition

Take time to review how your competitors have amended their own website over time, and view how changes in strategy impacted on their volume of visitors. Archive.org shows you how many websites used to look like. Use Alexa.com to compare the timescale of design changes with peaks and troughs of their site visitors.

5) Set conversion goals and review their performance

It's so important to make sure that you've got the basics right. Are visitors being turned off for some reason by your home page? You don't want to be succeeding in all the hard work of delivering the right type of visitor to your website and then fail to take advantage of it when they arrive. Make sure that you take the time to study articles on conversion rates. Test different types and designs of forms. Ask your own customers for their feedback. Do whatever it takes to optimize the results of your marketing efforts.

About the Author

David Bain is founder of the independent business articles resource, www.BuildYourOwnBusiness.biz. BuildYourOwnBusiness offers the latest business news & management advice on how best to build your own business - business articles on Strategy, eBusiness, Change Management & much, much more.

THREE GREAT WAYS TO KEEP YOUR WEBSITE VISITORS COMING BACK FOR MORE

Author: David Bain
You've already done one of the most important things to ensure that visitors come back. You've committed to updating your website every week. But how do you make sure that your visitors don't forget about you?

1) Really Simple Syndication

Make sure that your updates appear on your visitor's home page. RSS (Really Simply Syndication) helps you do this. It works by displaying your latest article headlines on whichever page a visitor desires, and makes the visitor much more aware of updates that are relevant to him. With the plethora of information available on the web, the last thing that you need is users, who found your website useful, forgetting about you. Sites like FeedBurner.com can help you market your RSS feed.

2) Email newsletter

A more traditional form of keeping in touch with your visitors is an email newsletter. The first thing that you'll need for this is of course a method of capturing your visitor's email address. You may wish to also ask for additional information such as their location or other contact details. You can either host & operate your own database to capture the information or outsource the email newsletter service to a specialist provider such as Constant Contact which offers a 60 day free trial.

3) Podcast

A podcast is one of the newest forms of keeping in touch with your customers. It is an audio or video file that people can either play on their computer or download onto their MP3 / MP4 player such as an iPod. Making a podcast isn't as difficult or expensive as you may think. It just takes a few hours a week. Many podcasters use the excellent free software Audacity, and a show can be recorded on any modern computer with a simple microphone and headphone set attached. Personalisation of your show can be achieved by getting your own theme tune from a website like Mark Blasco's PodcastThemes.com. There are many web hosts specialising in podcasts now such as Audioblog.com, Switchpod.com and Podomatic.com. Remember to use a service like Feedburner.com to market your feed / show.

About the Author

David Bain is founder of the independent business articles resource, www.BuildYourOwnBusiness.biz. BuildYourOwnBusiness offers the latest business news & management advice on how best to build your own business - business articles on Strategy, eBusiness, Change Management & much, much more.