So follow these 5 simple ideas to start generating daily traffic back to your home based business site:

Idea 1 – Include Keywords in your Online Profile.
How often have you had to create an online profile recently, especially if you are into the web2.0 craze, one excellent way to generate good backlinks is to use carefully chosen keyword phrases in your online profile. This will dramatically increase the chances that people will find you, either via search engines or via a site’s search facility.

Even though profile links are not very valuable in Google’s eyes, they are quick and easy to set up. Looking for forums to create an online profile is simple just go to Google and type in

Keyword + Forum

Idea 2 – Get one-way backlinks.
Even though reciprocal links are not as important as they used to, they can still be very useful especially when you are trying to get a new home-based business site established in the search engines.

However, keep in mind this warning from Google webmaster guidelines.

“Do not participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or page rank.”

So even though a good linking campaign is important for traffic generation, it should not be your major traffic generating strategy

Idea 3 – Invite other sites to Publish or Share your articles.
A good traffic generation idea is to write a few good unique articles, with good keyword phrases. Host these articles on your home-based business site with a note at the bottom of the article, giving other people permission to reprint the article providing the “Resource Box” at the end of the article is published too

Idea 4: Publish a lively newsletter.
How many people have you got visiting your home based business site on a week, 3000, or less? Most of these people will only look at a few pages then disappear forever. In fact, the least amount of traffic you have going to your site, the more important this idea will be.

You need to persuade these people to return to your home-based business site.

The best way of doing this is by writing your own newsletter, which is an excellent way of booting traffic, a good well-written newsletter will not only remind your readers that your site exists, but will keep them loyal month after month.

Newsletters not only enhance your reputation and add to your credibility, best of all, it will give you repeated opportunities to make a sale.

Another advantage of having a newsletter to that if you start another home-based business website, you will be off to a flying start because you already have a captivated readership that trusts you.

Idea 5: Publish a mini-course.
This is also a great idea to get people to keep on coming back to your home based business site, you can decide on the format whether you want the course to be a long or short mini-course, what is more important is that you provide genuinely useful content.

After you have won the trust of your readers start weaving in relevant affiliate links into your mini-courses.

To retain your readers interest, at the end of each message, give them a little teaser by telling what will be in the next message of the mini-course.

Conclusion.
As you can see from the above 5 ideas, traffic generation is not hard, but you have to take action, you will not get any decent traffic by just doing good SEO, you have to have a detailed plan of action and the more varied your ideas are the more success you will have.

The post 5 Quick Ways to Generate Traffic to Your Website appeared first on Make Money Online With Your Computer: LaptopWork.com.

Free traffic is available in abundance on the internet; you just need to know how to find it!

There are two common types of internet traffics available for the online marketer: search engine traffic and traffic received from strategically placed backlinks on other websites or social sites.

Search engine marketing is an art in itself. If you want your website to rank high in the search engines, you need to study and stay on top of the ever-changing search engine optimization (SEO) world. I can provide a few pointers for ranking your website high in the search engines, but I strongly recommend you to learn the basic of SEO to promote your website correctly.

Search engines rank their results based on many factors. Two of these factors are within your control: your website content and your backlinks.

Your content should always be relevant to your product (never copy text from elsewhere on the internet! Always write original content for your site). The more relevant content you provide for your particular product or service, the more search engines will view your site as a valuable resource for web searchers.

Search engines keep track of how many links on the internet point to your website. The more high-quality backlinks, the higher your site will rank in the search results.

Although not entirely within your control, backlinks can be placed on the internet via many free methods. You can acquire backlinks through: writing articles, asking other websites for a link by “indirect” exchange, adding your site to social bookmarking sites, adding your website to online directories, and the list goes on.

There are many, many ways to acquire backlinks to your website. I suggest you perform a search for how to get backlinks and you will find enough ideas to keep you busy twenty-four hours a day. The more backlinks you acquire from high authority sites with relevant or complement topics, the higher your site will rank.

While you can purchase backlinks to your website, it is advisable not to buy backlinks from websites that are selling out too many backlinks to other sites because that makes it easy for Google to know you are buying backlinks from those sites, and Google doesn’t like it. You want to buy backlinks from sites that have a small and limited number of backlinks for sales and the owners have a good way of hiding it from the Big G.

Another great method of backlinking is to use a signature on user forums. Let’s say your business website sells dog training products. You can join a user forum that focuses on dog training (or dog ownership or pet ownership, etc).

Within your forum profile, you can add a link to your website and a brief line of text, such as “Please visit my website to get my free dog training tips!” Once your profile is in place, you can start communicating with the forum by joining their conversations and providing your input.

As long as you provide worthwhile content to the forum, other users will not object to your signature promoting your website. However, not all forums allow commercial signatures, so make sure you examine other user’s signatures before you invest any substantial amount of time participating in forum discussions.

Another great method for getting direct traffic from a backlink is to post comments on blogs. There are many blog search engines available online. When you find one, perform a search for your niche keywords and you will get a list of blogs that are relevant to your content. Then, read the author’s posts and place a non-spam, relevant comment. Your comment will include a backlink to your own website with relevant and helpful content which will draw visitors from that particular blog to your site.

Hopefully, you find this article helpful. If you do, please share it with others. Thank you very much!

The post How to Start Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Your Way to Success appeared first on Make Money Online With Your Computer: LaptopWork.com.

Many online business owners commit this same sin. They make a point to tell their visitors what exceptional service they’ll receive, how quick they’ll be responded to, how innovative their products are, or a hundred other promises. Then, when a complaint comes in, or phone messages are left, nothing happens. They don’t walk the talk.

How many times has it happened to you personally? You ordered a product or service online. You had a problem or a simple question. You called the customer service number (or sent an email) and nothing. How did you feel? Most likely irritated, frustrated, and taken advantage of.

Yes, it’s common for companies to claims of professional customer service nowadays. The Internet has suffered from “Wild, Wild West” syndrome far too long and surfers are demanding the attention they deserve. However, simply making false claims will do more harm than good.

Don’t promise what you can’t deliver. Before putting claims of any kind on your site, consider these tips:

1. If you say your product/service “will” do something, make darn sure it does. Every time!

2. If you offer “24/7 service” be prepared to answer emails or phone calls cheerfully and graciously at 3:00 am when someone overseas phones you.

3. If you make claims of giving “100% satisfaction guaranteed” refunds, get ready to fork over the money without asking any questions whatsoever. “I wasn’t satisfied” is all the customer has to tell you to take advantage of your offer.

4. UNDER promise and OVER deliver. If you “think” you can get back to customers within 24 hours, tell them it will take 48 hours. This way, when you call them sooner, they’ll be thrilled with the attentive service you offer.

5. Stop and think. Before putting any claims on your site – service, delivery, refunds, product features, service benefits. ANY claims – have an outside party check behind you. Does it work? Is it fast? Are you cheerful? Will it actually wake me up, start the coffee, and heat the water for my shower all at the same time? If not, don’t put it in your copy.

Customers online have had enough. They are paying more attention now and expecting more from the businesses they deal with. Above all – use ethics, manners, and good common sense in your business practices. Stand behind what you say. When you do, you’ll find the profits from your long-term relationships and the increase in your reputation will far outweigh any short-term sales gains.

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You’d think someone paying you would do that, wouldn’t you? Instead, they listen to their brother-in-law or the guy at the post office, or they start reading things on the Internet. One client, Julio, even started hiring other people – a PR consultant, a logo designer, an advertising agency. It became an impossible situation with input from all directions. Each of us contradicted the other at one point. Julio then made the decisions, trusting no one. Why, then, I asked him, did you hire people? (And then I fired him.)

THE IDEAL CLIENT DOESN’T CONFUSE HIM/HERSELF
Other clients pay me and listen to what I say. It’s a novel concept, but it works well. When I started working with Gordon, I said, “Yes, I will tell you what computer to buy, but not if you plan to then go ask everyone you know for their advice. That would waste your time and mine.” Gordon said, “I wouldn’t do that. Then I’d get confused.”

Gordon is “the ideal client.” He paid me for my marketing consulting, listened, took action, and his practice is thriving as a result. He saved us both a lot of time, which, since I bill by the hour, saved him a lot of money. He’s a smart man.

So how should you proceed if you are working with a web designer? There are a few “musts”. If you want people to visit your website and stay there, make sure the front page loads fast enough — in about 5-8 seconds. Web designers, like all creative people, get bored. Okay? They like to try all the new “bells and whistles.” This may or may not work in your situation. It’s like the choir director at church. Most of us would like to sing “A Mighty Fortress” every Sunday, some hymn we know and love. It’s been around a long time because we love it! It works. The choir director, on the other hand, wants to be on the leading edge, try the new things.

Know what you want and stick to it. Do your homework before you get there. Find 3-5 websites you like. The style, colors, font, layout, navigation. Show these to your web designer rather than trying to describe. Be clear about what you want. “Something professional-looking” is open to interpretation. “A site like this one: www.Sony.com” works a lot better. Trust your intuition. If they show you something you don’t like, go with your feelings. Find one with expertise in websites in your field. It will save you having to explain a lot of things. Find someone you trust and let them do their work.

HOW DO YOU FIND THIS PERSON?
1. Get a referral from someone whose opinion you trust.
2. Find a site you like and find out who did it.

I recommend two web designers to my clients. I know them and I know their work. They are excellent in every aspect:

They can get out of their own head and put the client on the webpage. They have the technical skills required. They are professional and responsible. They meet deadlines. They set a price and stick to it. They are courteous to my clients.

All those points are important, but Number 1 is MORE important. (In fact, you should expect the others.) It’s most important they have the knack of translating “you” onto the Internet.

THE RELATIONSHIP
I’ve been in marketing for many years. It happens to be a field everyone thinks they know something about – and indeed we do. We’re all consumers, and we have marketing “working on us” all the time, so we have our opinions. It isn’t like going to the dentist, for instance. I don’t have much knowledge about root canals, and I pretty much leave it up to the dentist.

It takes maturity and emotional intelligence to make it a successful relationship that produces the kind of product you want. That means you need two mature people with Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ) skills. Some web designers are all IQ and tech skills, with little ability to relate. Avoid those. Some web designers are the creative genius type, like Frank Lloyd Wright, who wanted to do what he wanted to do, the hell with the client. Avoid those.

Something in between is nice. It doesn’t have to be a fight. If it’s feeling like a fight, you need a new web designer. Start with a web designer who comes well recommended. Then enter a relationship of mutual respect. He or she knows how to design a website, and you know what you want. Together you can make music!

The post How to Work with Your Website Designer appeared first on Make Money Online With Your Computer: LaptopWork.com.

All of us are here online to make money, and it is not that easy as you may sometimes hear. In fact, it is possible only with a certain kind of web presence.

I have one short advice: Be Original. Not Extravagant but original.

You can, of course, start as a reseller, but there will come a moment, and you will have to move on either to make money or to make more money. And here comes the question about your unique and successful web presence.

Before you start, you should know what you want to do, make your researches and study what is necessary to learn and become an expert in the fields you will need. It is great to complement your product/s or service/s with backend items like reselling items, of course, but do not make it your main web presence.

Many so-called gurus invite you to get a site exactly as their own, to copy them and the like. Do not – NEVER.

Just imagine the poor customer wandering from one site to another completely the same like in a mirror maze, confused, not knowing why he or she should buy. Customers like to buy individuality – a brand.

And you are a unique personality. Why lose it? You have experience that no one else has, you have knowledge no one else has, you have opinions no one else has. Only you can provide your customers with your complete package of products and services, and once you accept and adopt someone else’s site, his thoughts, attitudes, you lose something valuable of yourself and definitely you lose your chance to succeed.

Once you have all the information and knowledge you need, you should sum up all you have studied, evaluate and decide on your web presence – your unique brand. Then create an overall plan, system, and strategies for your unique web presence, considering again all you have learned but giving it your personality.

However, do not confuse originality with extravagance. A successful web presence is not extravagant. It is essential that you stick to established principles that a customer subconsciously perceives as a value.

Also, be prepared that once you do establish a unique, original and successful work of yours on the web, you will receive two responses:

– Tens and hundreds of copycats will immediately jump out monkeying you, stealing from you, and

– Your competition feeling threatened by you will attack your unique features trying to make you leave your path this way.

Do not fight. Once you are sure your system works, steadily follow your plan, improving it, keeping it up-to-date, making it better every day, offering more and better services to your customers. You will never regret you have chosen this path though it’s not easy nor quick, but it is the most effective way. And I wish you all the bests!

The post How To Establish YOUR Successful Web Presence appeared first on Make Money Online With Your Computer: LaptopWork.com.

For example, in 1995 (I know I’m old) I was trying to sell articles about the Internet to general-interest and women’s magazines. No sale. At that stage, the Internet hadn’t erupted into mass consciousness. That taught me that topics must be familiar to a magazine’s readers, but with a new slant.

The easiest way to enliven a topic is by using what’s in the headlines. At the moment, if you’re writing about women’s health, and if you know that controversy about Hormone Replacement Therapy is news. Use this to give your articles an up-to-the-minute flavor.

A journalist updated “intuition” as a topic by using a news story that was making headlines in Australia. A tourist was abducted in the outback and is still missing. The tourist’s female companion hadn’t obeyed her intuition and the journalist used this as an effective hook for her story.

My favorite way of making topics new is by developing a new slant. I wanted to write about procrastination, so I spoke to a life management coach, a business trainer, and a psychologist. Procrastination is an old topic, but I got some great quotes from the experts, who had unique ways of handling it with their clients.

What if you want to write about a topic that’s non-mainstream? You can get lucky with a proposal if your topic is familiar to the editor you pitch. A few months ago I became fascinated with energy medicine and a technique called EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques). I knew this was likely to be too new for mainstream magazines, but I got lucky.

An editor at Australian Woman’s Day was familiar with the technique and accepted the article. Alternatively, your idea may be quite standard, but new to the editor. This happened with a story on the Glycemic Index I sold to a health and fitness magazine.

Look through your file of unsold article proposals. Make them “new”, and sell them. Here’s how. For each proposal:

* Consider whether this topic has been in the headlines recently (no matter how tangentially);

* Ask yourself whether an expert might have a unique take on the topic;

* Search Amazon.com for new books on that topic;

* Brainstorm new slants and hooks;

* Don’t give up on your “too new” topics — send the proposals out periodically (say every six months). Sooner or later every new topic becomes mainstream.

The post Your article idea must be new — but not too original appeared first on Make Money Online With Your Computer: LaptopWork.com.

I still believe that if you’re writing for a major publication which accepts advertising, you should be paid, and paid well. If a magazine, newspaper or Website charges thousands of dollars for advertising, they can afford to pay the writer for the content which delivers the eyeballs to that advertising. Without writers, there would be no advertising, and the publication wouldn’t exist.

However, there are problems.

1) The problems with paying writers’ markets

Here are several of the problems I’ve identified:

* Declining pay rates for writers. If you write for major magazines, you know that you’re getting paid less today than you were a couple decades ago.

* Stiff competition. You send your query in and never hear. This is understandable. Major magazines receive hundreds of queries every week. If they replied to them all, the staff would never get anything else done.

* Editor churn. Even ten years ago, if you sold to a major magazine, you formed a relationship with the editor. You sold her other pieces over the next year or two. Nowadays, you’re lucky if the editor is still with the magazine when the issue with your article in it hits the newsstands.

* Slow payment in tough times. Even with pay on acceptance markets, you may wait months for your check.

* Wasting time. You can spend days wracking your brain and researching, to find the perfect story for a particular market, and then receive the reply, thanks, but:

“We’re running a story on that in our next issue” or “We’ve just signed a writer for that”.

What’s the upshot of all these problems? If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. I’ve turned to copywriting, that is, writing for businesses, rather than put up with the hassles of writing for magazines.

2) The benefits of writing for free

It makes sense to write for free if you’re being paid in other ways.

For example, as a promotion. My sister and I have just partnered with a new Website. I’ve been happily writing articles to promote the site for a few weeks now. I send my articles out far and wide and hope that article directories’ editors and Web site owners will publish them for free. It’s not really writing for free, it’s quid pro quo because, in exchange for using my articles, the publications include my Resource Box, which includes a link to my site.

However, beyond promotion, I’ve discovered other benefits of writing for free.

* You write more. This is pressure-free writing. You get to write what you like, when you like.

* You get more ideas. All this keyboard-tapping is making me more creative. I’ve got pages and pages of notes for articles, books, and courses.

* You enjoy writing more. It’s been years since I enjoyed writing this much. Why? Because it’s more play than writing.

* You’re pioneering new ways for writers to make a living from writing.

3) You, the writer, a pioneer

The Internet turns writers into pioneers. You get to discover new ways to make a living from your craft. Is this easy? No. Is it fascinating? You bet.

I first became aware of the Internet in 1993-1994. In those days, getting an Internet connection was an adventure. I finally got a free connection, set it up with lots of help (there’s nothing as unforgiving as a Unix command line), and discovered online bulletin boards.

Within months, I had a CompuServe account, and the real adventure began. I couldn’t believe the possibilities. I still can’t.

There’s a revolution going on. Thanks to the Internet, writers are discovering new ways to make money. They’re publishing their books as ebooks, setting up subscription Web sites, and subscription article directories.

They get started in this adventure by writing “for free”. As their following builds, they sell their work to the people who know them and trust what they have to say.

* These writers built this trust by writing for free.*

Can you make money from ebooks? You work it out. If you write an ebook on a hot topic, it takes you a month or so to write. You sell it online for $35. You sell 200 (let’s be conservative). Not bad pay for a month’s work.

If you’re writing professionally, it takes a change in perspective to write and not get paid for it. At least, not in a way you’re used to being paid.

But writing for free can help you to discover how creative you really are.

The post Should You Write For Free? The Writer’s Dilemma appeared first on Make Money Online With Your Computer: LaptopWork.com.

The proposals you generate on your own after you’ve identified a need the client has, are called Unsolicited Proposals. By creating lots of proposals, you get lots of work.

When I’m soliciting copywriting work, I write mini-proposals, of around a page, or 300 words. I send out these mini-proposals either as an introduction to my services or as a follow-up to an initial call I’ve made to the business.

Whenever you’re going through a slow period, turn out a few dozens of proposals. Within a few weeks, you should have more work than you can handle. Businesses are used to receiving proposals, so no one will think it odd when you submit one.

So what does a mini-proposal contain? A single page, with:

* a description of a problem (or need) you conceive the business has;

* an outline of the solution;

* why you’re the person to solve this problem — what skills you have.

Simple, right?

When you start sending out mini-proposals regularly, you WILL get work. Lots of work.

Everyone has problems; everyone is looking for solutions. You market yourself to businesses as someone who can solve their problems.

==> Spotting a need
Start by training yourself to spot problems (call them challenges when you’re communicating with businesses) and needs that businesses have. You’re going to become Mr. or Ms. Fixit.

Let’s take a simple example of spotting a need. Let’s say you’re a writer, browsing the Web, and you come across a business Web site which has lots and lots of typos.

How do you approach the business?

Go to Whois, at https://www.whois.com and get the business owner’s contact details. By entering their website address to look up, most of the time you would see their contact info listed on Whois.

Now you’re going to fax, mail or email a message.

Let’s say you’ve decided to email the manager of the business. Your message’s Subject line could be: “Proposal — Website proofing.”

Because of all the spam on the Internet, you’re going to make it clear that although this is unsolicited, it’s a normal business communication, not a message that you’re firing out at random to a thousand businesses on the Web.

Construct the message as you would a postal letter, with the name of the owner or manager, the business name, and the date on the first few lines.

Next comes the salutation: “Dear Mr. Smith”.

Introduce yourself immediately.

“My name is John Brown. I’m an independent writer. I visited your Web site at _________.”

At this point, make some kind and generous comments about the site, to that show that you’ve actually visited it. Say anything you like here, as long as it’s a compliment.

Then describe the problem — mention the typos, in other words.

DON’T be explicit. Don’t mention where the typos are. (You’re looking for work, remember.)

Outline the solution: you can proof the site content.

Tell Mr. Brown why you’re the person to handle the proofing.

Tell Mr. Brown how to contact you.

Close the message in the usual way.

Add all your contact details: email, phone, and website (if you have one).

By addressing your email message clearly, and putting in all your contact details, you’ve established that you’re not a spam artist. You’re a business person sending a proposal.

Great! You’ve written your first proposal. Now go and write another one. And another one after that. Proposals are great fun to write, and no matter what kind of work you’re after, they should get you more work than you can handle. But always keep in mind, no matter how busy you are with new incoming projects you should maintain (if not increase) the quality of your works.

The post How To Write A Proposal To Get Freelance Work appeared first on Make Money Online With Your Computer: LaptopWork.com.

Nearly half of the companies on the Inc. 500 list were started from home!

Think about it – not long ago, guys like Thomas Massie, CEO of SensAble Technologies( #211) and Edy Bedoya of EBC (#81) were building computer gadgets out of their dorm rooms (although not together). And we all know the story of Michael Dell (not on the list – he’s too big).

But it’s not just high-tech. Corporation #32, Twin Hills Collectables, started out as a hobby of the owner Steve Halsell. He earned $8,000 his first year selling die-cast replicas of NASCAR cars and $200,000 the next – At which point, his boss told him he should quit his day job because it cost him too much money. His 1998 sales revenues reached $8 million.

These stories underline the fact that there has never been a better time to start a home-based business: 500,000 new ones are launched each year, and that number is expected to grow, thanks to new tax rules that make working from home more cost-effective than ever. Affordable technology makes it possible to offer products and services that rival those of big corporations.

That same technology is rapidly becoming a staple in households where owning a laptop computer was too expensive just a decade ago — in new yet familiar forms, like TV’s and telephones — creating new markets.

The companies on the Inc. list share some things in common. One is a founder/owner with vision; someone who identifies a need, has a good idea and the courage to run with it. Another is perseverance. Bedoya’s story is especially moving: a Peruvian immigrant, he arrived in the States in the mid-80’s with just $100 in his pocket. After his first job — cleaning toilets in a restaurant — he worked his way up to dishwasher and finally to head chef before switching gears and entering the jewelry business.

A few years later, his car was stolen – along with all of his money, credit cards and inventory. By this time, Bedoya had enrolled in a college work-study program to earn a degree, and this is when he discovered computers. Six months later, he was in business buying and reselling parts. In 1998, his company’s revenues reached $13 million.

Successful businesspeople also know how to get the capital they need to launch and maintain their ventures. The Internet has recently become a force in funding startups; several underwriting organizations have sprouted online to help match investors with projects. One good place to start the search is Garage.com (https://www.garage.com).

Interestingly, almost 200 of the companies on Inc. list were capitalized with investments of under $10,000. And 79 were founded just five years ago.

Anything is possible, even becoming the subject of your own Success Story.

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