YOU! The EASIEST Thing To Sell Online (And The Fastest Way to Start Selling It - 100% for FREE)

By Ian Hollander

Q: What is the easiest thing to sell online? Is it a good affiliate product? An online marketing or entrepreneurial offer? What about a small product in a really obscure "mini-niche" that no one knows about but ME? Or maybe I'll just try to sell NOTHING... and get rich with AdSense, or contextual ads?

Any of these questions sound familiar? In this article I'm going to share with you the absolute EASIEST thing to sell online, and why if you are serious about success, and actually enjoying the work that you do, you'll actually apply this system to YOUR business, starting today (no more wasting time and spinning your wheels on silly stuff that will NEVER work).

Curious to know more? Continue reading as we take a closer look below!

The EASIEST thing to sell online is simple.

YOU.

If you can codify your knowledge into a service, there is NO better way to turn your passion into perpetual piles of PROFIT. Period.

Why?

Because if I need help, and you have genuine expertise, and authority in a niche or marketplace, "YOU" have value in my life.

You can set your own prices (and believe me, people WILL pay them if you deliver what you do best). 
You can work with who you want to... and equally as important, you can NOT work with whom you don't.

Remember... services, like the ones you can offer as a coach, consultant, teacher or trainer have a MUCH higher perceived value than eBooks, audio programs, membership sites, and other stuff that most "gurus" want you to believe you need.

For example - when I had a "real" business, I paid my accountant BIG bucks every time I needed to sit down with him for an hour or two and just get some of my questions answered. I didn't love it... but I did, because he helped my business save money.

If he would have put the same information into an eBook, or membership site, and said - "listen to this", I would have never agreed to pay even a fraction of that amount.

If you can organize and codify what you know into something that can be transmitted as a service... I don't care if you are a dry cleaner or a dentist, a clairvoyant or a credit counselor, you CAN get rich doing work that you love.

The truth is, selling yourself, in the best possible sense of the word, is the most elegant business model in the world.

And the online marketing model makes setting it up a cinch.

The fastest approach is what I call the "Strategy of Straight Lines" and it focused on moving strangers from subscribers, and subscribers into sales.

Basically, it works in 3 simple steps.

You create content, much like this.

And you use that content to generate a community of people who are interested in your expertise. And through a follow up conversation (via an email auto responder) you convert a small percentage of your community into clients.

For most personal service markets, a small 5% conversion percentage can make you very financially successful, and you are still helping (hopefully) 100% of the people who are on your "list" but aren't ready, able or willing to pay for higher end help.

Remember, content creation is 100% free, and that is the engine that drives your business using this approach.

An auto responder is very inexpensive, and there are plenty of services that offer FREE services, until you get to a significant amount of subscribers.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ian_Hollander

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3 Red Flags to Be Aware of When Buying a Website

By Ryan Kaufman

f you are looking to purchase an existing business website rather than build your own, you should accomplish the research and ask questions just as you would when deciding to buy a car, a home or a brick and mortar business. Here are three questions or red flags you need to wave in front of any website broker you may do business with:

1. Is the website already generating an income? If it's making money, then it is already in good business shape. That's not to say it can't be improved upon, but an existing income is a great indicator. Get a year's worth of sales data to determine if your new potential income source is steady, improving or if it is slowly decreasing over time. If the website has been active for less than a year, you need to get the full history before deciding to purchase.

2. Is the website new? If it has been active for only a few weeks or even a couple of months, it doesn't have very much history yet with the various search engines and probably very little, if any, traffic. There is no reason why you can't let the current owner do the work, establish a popular, high traffic website and then purchase it for your own use. If the site is new and does have significant traffic then you should check the backlink profile to make sure there aren't any "blackhat" or spammy links pointing to the site. Many times these types of links can rank sites fast, but once detected by the search engines they quickly get discarded.

3. What are the advertising costs? The best way to determine this is to ask for the current owner's advertising specifics. Which service is used (Bing, Google, etc.), number and type of keywords used, negative keywords used, price per click and so on. If there is simply a lack of strong keywords or the current owner is not budgeting enough for visitor traffic, then this could be a website campaign you can easily improve upon.

If these three questions can be answered to your satisfaction, then this may be a smart purchase. Don't forget that if you ever decide to sell your website in the future, you'll need to make sure you can answer these same questions to a buyer so you can get the best possible price. Buyers will insist on having a very complete and transparent picture of the traffic and revenue details if you wish to maximize your site valuation.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ryan_Kaufman

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College Students Can Make Money Selling on Micro Job Sites

By Jed Lampi

College students, and for that matter, college-aged kids, can make extra money by posting jobs on micro job sites. What types of jobs? Well that depends mostly on the individual's skill set and for college students, their major and courses they've studied. There are parallels for many different majors and the types of jobs that work and sell well on micro job sites and therefore, there are many opportunities for college students in a variety of majors.

So what are micro job sites?

These sites allow anyone to post jobs that typically cost under $20, but the most popular sites allow users to post jobs in the $5 to $10 range. Website-related services like SEO, article writing, link building, etc. are the most posted jobs, but basically any job (except for adult, illegal and gambling related jobs) goes and can turn into a best selling job! That's one of the main attractors of these sites; it's nearly impossible to tell which job will strike accord with the buyers that frequent these sites. The key is value and quality; if you're posting jobs that offer a quality service that will save the buyer time, you will sell jobs!

Why should college students post jobs on micro job sites?

There are several reasons why college students are perfect sellers on micro job sites and can therefore make money, but the big ones are their skills, ability to work when you can, being tech savvy and their ability to pick up things and learn quickly.

College Students Have Skills!

College students typically have many areas of expertise and have skills that most of the population doesn't have. Moreover, every individual has a unique skill set and all of this can be used to create jobs and fulfill orders in a way to actually make them a decent hourly wage. The more unique and different a job is, the more views it will get and in turn, will sell more. By having multiple skills at your disposal, you can bundle them together and create some ingenious jobs that people will want to buy at a low price. The trick then is to figure out a way to offer something unique in a relatively quick fashion. That's up to every individual to figure out!

Selling on a Micro Job Site offers Time Flexibility

College students typically have ever-changing schedules and selling jobs on micro job sites allow them to work when they can and fulfill orders for their services when they come in. This way, they can work an hour at a time when they have free time instead of needing a multiple hour long block of time to "punch in" to make money.

College Students have grown up with Technology

Because college students have grown up with technology, many of the types of jobs that sell frequently on micro job sites are either second hat to them or can be picked up quickly and leveraged to make money. One of the reasons micro job sites have remained popular is because the buyers would rather pay someone who already knows how to do something a bit of money than have to learn how to do it and then actually do it. Having a wide-based skill set allows you to post more high quality jobs in a variety of areas and you'll sell more than someone with 1 job related to 1 specialty.

If you're a college student and you're looking to make money online in the free time that you have, consider posting jobs to micro job sites. You can sell jobs based on the knowledge you have right now and based on the skills you possess!


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jed_Lampi

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Top 10 Rules Of Success For Starting An Online Business

By Nathan Cracraft

#10 Develop a business plan – No matter what type or size of online business you want to start, it is really important that you spend the time to plan out your business. A business plan is the perfect tool for this. A business plan will help you better understand your business strategy, competition, economic landscape and financial scenarios. Although a business plan takes a little time, you do not have to be a business expert to write one.

#9 Know your visitors – Who are you trying to attract to your website? Knowing the types of visitors that will come to your site will help you custom tailor your products, services, content, features and website presentation. As you launch and manage your online business, carefully pay attention to your visitor traffic. You may find that the types of visitors that are coming to your site are a little bit different than you had originally planned. Be adaptive and take advantage of your traffic observations by fine-tuning your website to best fit your visitors.

#8 Test and proofread – The quality of your website is the absolute first impression of your online business. Make sure you thoroughly test and proofread all of the pages of your website. Having broken links, error messages, or numerous typographical or grammar errors sends the wrong message to your customers. Think of your website as a physical retail outlet. Would you buy products from a store with broken windows or lots of spelling errors in their marketing brochures?

#7 Ask for feedback – Throughout the process of building and managing your online business, constantly ask for feedback. Feedback can come from a variety of sources: customers, family, friends and colleagues. Feedback will also come indirectly through analyzing the traffic and purchase patterns on your site. What do people like about your online business and website? Are your prices competitive? Can visitors get around your site easily? Keep your eyes open for consistent feedback trends and incorporate these suggestions as improvements to your online operations.

#6 Treat your online business as a business – When you decide to start an online business, treat it as just that, a business. And you are the business owner. Too many people dabble in online business and never succeed. Why? If it isn’t a business, it’s just a hobby or even a diversion. Get serious about your online business goals, plan accordingly, and make your internet dreams a reality!

#5 Gear up mentally – Before you get started building your online business, gear yourself up mentally. There will be challenges ahead! With the proper attitude, however, these challenges will be exciting, invigorating learning opportunities. Understand the fact that starting your own business requires work and you may need to sacrifice a little bit. If you can manage your own expectations about what is in store, you will find that the extra work and sacrifices are a really small price to pay for financial and professional freedom.

#4 Gear up financially – There is really no better, sure-fire way to go out of business than if you run out of money! Spend the time up-front to determine what startup capital your business needs to sustain itself while building revenue. Don’t stop there! Think about your personal situation as well. How much do you have in savings? How much of your savings are you willing to spend supporting you and your family while you build your online business? Understanding and managing your personal and business financial situations are critical to success.

#3 Surround yourself with positive attitudes – We all have friends and family who can be dark clouds. Most of the time they are negative because of they are woefully unsatisfied with their own lives. Perhaps you have several fair weather friends. You know the kind…they really seem to be your best friend whenever your life is in shambles. But when things are going great for you, they aren’t so happy. Regardless, distance yourself from all things negative and surround yourself with a nurturing, supportive network of friends and family.

#2 Be flexible - When you are just starting out in your online business, flexibility and adaptability are key for your success. You will likely need to adapt parts of your business model as you learn more about the business, online tools, and your typical visitor demographics. At all costs, do not equate flexibility with failure! It is the exact opposite! By being flexible and shifting your strategies to best support your market, you will position your internet business for sure-fire success.

#1 Convince yourself of success – You are your own biggest supporter and fan. Convince yourself in your heart and soul that you will succeed in your online endeavors. Have faith in your ability, determination and drive. Giving up is not an option. Sure, you may need to change certain assumptions about your business – that’s a normal, everyday thing. Light a fire in your entrepreneurial belly and have the firm conviction that you can achieve all of your online business goals and then some! You deserve to succeed!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nathan_Cracraft

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Internet Marketing Is The Key To Longevity - See Why

By Will Moore

Internet marketing covers a broad scope of online businesses. Below is a list of internet marketing business models:

* Pay per click advertising

* banner ads

* e-mail marketing

* affiliate marketing

* interactive advertising

* search engine marketing

* Blog marketing

* Article marketing

* forum marketing

* Niche marketing

Marketers would like to get the best ROI possible for their marketing investment. The fact is that marketing ROI is sometimes hard to track the penny.

Over 72% of the Internet's search traffic is requested through Google. That being said, Internet marketing starts with Google and their search bots criteria for returning search engine results.

The popularity of your website is one major factor in how successful your marketing campaign will be. Whether you are marketing from other avenues such as Google AdWords or Adsense; when the individual pulls up your website, they will need to be interested in your content.

Pay per click can be tracked by conversion rate and other tracking tools provided by the advertising company.

Many companies specialize in implementing Internet marketing strategies and Search Engine Optimization services, which both are closely related. If you have a budget that will allow you to hire a marketing or SEO firm I suggest you do so because it will allow you to concentrate on your website content.

Since the first goal of marketing is to increase, the visibility of a product how you decide to do so is paramount.

I started with Google AdWords and made no money. Google AdWords for me was a pay per sale Internet marketing strategy in which I soon found I did not have all the information I needed to be successful.

I had an unfocused website with a theme but no valuable content. I researched how important website content was to marketing, and then a light went off. I began to not only focus my content but target my audience.

My Internet marketing research took me to several forums and expert SEO websites. To be a successful online marketer you have to learn how search engines evaluate website content. Search engine marketing plays a major role in website traffic generation.

Another important factor in marketing is generating backlinks to your website. Although backlinks or sometimes-called inlinks or inbound links are a form of Search Engine Optimization, it has a direct effect on marketing. Backlinks are the number of websites that have your URL listed within their content. Search Engines use this information to determine how popular your website is. The more popular your website is the better your chances of higher page rank. Create backlinks only to websites relevant to yours.

A popular high-ranking website will get more traffic, which will draw, in higher revenue from marketing campaigns.

I learned that Keyword and Keyword phrase search volume was not as important as quality themed content. Themed content includes but is not limited to keeping your entire site relevant to one topic. Straying away from your site theme can confuse search engine robots and visitors' it could also effect how your website will be ranked with search engines'.

Search engine ranking plays an important role in Internet marketing but it is not the only factor to success. Google gives detailed instructions on their website on how to optimize for high page rank.

If your website is created from a broad keyword term or phrase, you will allow yourself the ability to create Niches out of subcategories of that term. The aforementioned will give you the ability to attract several segments of one broad market.

A website about Golf can set up a separate directory within the website that markets Golf clubs, Golf gloves, Golf shoes, etc.
Some people chose only to cover one segment or Niche (also known as Niche marketing).

Attempting to cover every segment of a keyword term or phrase can slowly allow a website authority status on a particular subject (as long as the content is of quality and the link structure is correct).

Email marketing explains is self-explanatory. Although it has been widely used for spam by those who obtain your email address without your consent email marketing is very effective when done properly.

Companies like Aweber communications inc. of Newton, PA allow its customers to set up email campaigns with verified opt-in. For instance; on our home page we offer you the opportunity to sign up to our newsletter, when you sign up you have opted in meaning you give us permission to send you email. Those on the email list have the opportunity to opt-out via a link that is attached to every email they receive. The cool thing about Aweber is that they make it easy for anyone with a website to setup an email campaign.

Through email marketing, you either are able to further your website marketing strategy by marketing products directly or by sending, them back to your website were you then market the product. I personally prefer the later...

Forum marketing is effective but does take some time as does most marketing strategies. With forum marketing you become a member to forums relevant to your website and participate with substantive posts as much as possible keeping your website link in your signature.

Forum marketing does two things; one, it can allow you to attract visitors to your website (if your posts lead them) and two, it creates backlinks when your URL is in your signature.

Viral marketing is exactly what it sounds like; a virus. It combines many types of marketing strategies such as video, banners ads, email, fax, pod cast, word of mouth, etc.

If you market anything long, enough you will become a viral marketer.

Article marketing does two things also, one creates an interest in your website and backlinks. On the other hand, if your articles are "garbage" then it will only create backlinks. Those that market via articles do so by writing about information relevant to their Internet business and submitting each article to as many article directories as possible. Many people search article directories for information of interest. Search engines also crawl article directories. It can take up to six months to see the results of article marketing campaigns.

Article marketing has been made easier with the numerous auto submission software on the market. Although there are many article databases that do not except articles from auto submitters there are still thousands that do.

It would be in every "webmasters'" best interest to ad article marketing to their marketing campaigns.

Although a combination of Internet Marketing, strategies are important to generate traffic to your website, once the search engines favor your website and your articles attract visitors, you will be able to market almost anything relevant to your website content.

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Online Marketing Company - Do You Really Need One?

By Chris M Green

Working with an online marketing company offers plenty of benefits, but there are disadvantages as well. Creating a market for your product or service takes time, and if you don't have the knowledge around Internet marketing, it's going to take longer. Then again, if you have all the work done by an online marketing company it could end up hurting your budget.

The best approach is to understand your needs before anything else. It's possible you will end up doing some things by yourself and need help in other areas. We're going to help you figure this out today. All you have to do is take into account the information below. It will help you make a more informed decision.

Starting with a Website

When you look at all the successful entrepreneurs on the Internet, most of them have a website (or blog). While creating a website is something for web designers and programmers, the search engine optimization (SEO) of a website needs different expertise. It needs someone who understands the search engines, getting indexed, and ranking higher to gain more traffic.

This is where you want to consider using an online marketing company. The good ones will have teams working on various facets of your Internet marketing. One of them will have the expert knowledge to tackle your website SEO. Every website owner should consider this type of marketing as a necessity, because it will play a major role in the relevancy to your niche.

Social Media Marketing

Another area where an online marketing company can help is through social media. Places like Facebook and Twitter are traffic platforms that must be used. Everything from Fan or Business Pages, Tweets, and socializing with targeted traffic will help your business grow. Plus, they already know how to get others to help promote your business as well.

While Facebook and Twitter can be huge benefits, an online marketing company understands there are several other places that are similar on the Internet. Whether it's MySpace, LinkedIn, or anything else, using them all will make this more beneficial. However, trying to create accounts and stay active within each community is not a "One Man" or "One Woman" job.

Other Marketing Efforts

SEO for your website and social media marketing are only two of the avenues you can use. Taking advantage of an online marketing company will give you access to other marketing efforts as well. Here are some of the other areas you should consider:

* Article Marketing

* Video Marketing

* Social Bookmarking

* Pay Per Click Campaigns

* Email Marketing

* Forum Marketing

* Blog Marketing

* eBook Marketing

* and much more!

The point is, if you try to work on all these areas yourself, there won't be any time left over for the business. Plus you have to consider other marketing factors as well like Bing Decide, the Facebook "Like," and Google +1. The business owners that use an online marketing company will be able to take advantage of all these strategies.

It's also important to understand that an online marketing company will be more effective. These companies have more than one person working on certain marketing strategies. It's a very beneficial approach, even if it costs a little more upfront. After all, you will see better results in the end.

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Internet Marketing Strategies For Your Online Business

By Randall A Magwood

Are you looking to start marketing your products and services on the internet? If so, you should know that it's not an easy journey. Even if you have a lot of money to throw at advertising, you'll get traffic and sales, but initial sales aren't the end of the story. There's a lot of things that go into the marketing mix if you want your website to be successful.

One of the most important things that you should know is that the internet is just another marketing medium. Aside from promoting your website online, you should also promote it offline - even if it means mailing to your customers once a month via postcard marketing. This is a form of offline marketing that is very effective.

Many tests have been conducted for the effectiveness between email and direct mail for backend marketing. And the results were that, direct mail increased sales to recurring customers by 82%! This is huge, and is a reason why the customer name is so valuable to you. But if you haven't tried it before, you should start doing it right away.

Now if you decide that direct mail or offline marketing isn't your cup of tea, then that's fine too. You can still make a nice 6-figure salary with your own online business and I encourage you to make it happen in your life. Just make sure you're profiting on your advertising campaigns and that you are doing backend marketing.

You will want to incorporate a wide variety of traffic strategies also. One of my favorite forms of traffic is article marketing. With article marketing, all you're doing is writing up high quality articles and submitting them to the article directories online.

These directories exist for a reason, and the REASON is so that you can get traffic back to your website, be perceived as an expert in your niche, and to get article syndication when people publish your article onto their website (with your link intact of course).

These are the benefits of article marketing. You should submit your articles to the top article directories online, and make sure they are 100% original. Strive to write 1 article per day, and submit them online. They're easy and simple to create, and I'm confident that you could write a high quality 500-word article within 30 minutes... even if you've never done it before.

Article marketing is just one of the many strategies that you could be doing online if you want to have the success that you're looking for online. I suggest that you make it a point to implement as many traffic strategies as possible, and then come up with just a handful of strategies that will get you as much sales and profits as you can handle.

You don't have to be an expert to make money online. You just have to get started and come up with a weekly marketing strategy that can supercharge your sales and profits. When you can do this, you know you're on the right path to earning more money in your business, and creating a name for yourself online. Take these tips to heart.

Good luck with using these strategies to make more money online today.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Randall_A_Magwood

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