Sample Content Preview

It is the dream of many people to setup and run a successful online business and live the Internet lifestyle. But most people that start online businesses fail. They do not use the right approach to setting up their online business and making it a success.

To create a successful online business you have to know what works and what doesn’t. It is much tougher to start and maintain a successful online business than most people think. This guide will explain the right approach to use to maximize your chances of success.

We have worked hard to provide you with everything that you need to know about starting an online business and making it a success. You will find it an easy and engaging read and we encourage you to read it from start to finish and then start to implement the tips and advice you find here.

You will learn what successful online business owners do to ensure their success. Avoid the mistakes that the majority of new online business owners make by following the methods outlined in this guide.

Why should you start an online business as opposed to a conventional brick and mortar business? There are a few good reasons for doing this:

• It costs a lot less to start an online business
• You do not need to hire any staff
• You do not need an office or other commercial premises
• You can start an online business today
• You just need a computer or mobile device and a connection to the Internet
• Work from anywhere
• Set your own hours
• People are used to making purchases online these days
• You do not need any technical skills
• You can outsource different tasks to freelancers

If you wanted to open a shop in a mall then you would need a lot of money to do this. You have to provide stock for your shop and pay commercial rent. Someone has to take care of the shop and if this is not going to be you then you will have to hire people.

You will also need to advertise your shop. If you are in a busy mall then you will get some potential customers walk in out of curiosity. But to do really well you need to do a lot of marketing to get people to your shop.

Of course you will need to advertise your online business as well and we will cover this in a later section in this guide. But it is easier to market an online business than it is a brick and mortar business and your reach is much larger. You can literally sell your products and services to the world with an online business.

Work your Online Business Part Time

You can start your online business from home. There are many owners of 6 figure online businesses that work from home. They do not need an office and they are able to work the hours that they choose.

If you have a job that pays the bills at the moment then we recommend that you keep this and develop your online business in your spare time. This can be tough if you have a family but talk to them and explain that things will be better in the near future. You need your family onboard with what you are doing.

It is not easy working a full time job and then switching on your computer to start working on your online business. You need a great deal of commitment and motivation to do this and in a later section we will discuss setting goals for your online business and ways that you can drive yourself to take action.

Unfortunately, a lot of people that start online businesses fail. There are no published statistics on the reasons for this but one of the main ones is very likely to be that they did not take their online business seriously.

Because there is a low barrier to entry from a financial point of view, many people will give up if they do not get the results that they are looking for. They put in the time and effort initially to get everything set up, and then lose interest quickly after that. We do not want this to happen to you.

There are no Push Button Miracles

There is a great deal of hype around making money online and running an online business. New products launch all of the time claiming that they will show you how to make a fortune overnight with a few clicks of your mouse.

This is totally untrue. It takes time and effort to create a 6 figure online business. Some of these products rely on loopholes that are eventually closed which means that your income will cease. You want to build a sustainable online business.

Don’t be fooled by the hype. You cannot generate buyer traffic to your offers in less than a minute.

This is ridiculous. There is no software out there that is going to magically turn your computer as an ATM. It is amazing that these product vendors get away with these wild claims.

A few years ago there were a number of scams on the Internet where people lost a lot of money and received nothing, or next to nothing in return. Over the years these have disappeared but you can never be too careful. If you are thinking of buying a product or service to help you with your online business then check it out thoroughly first.

Get started with a Domain Name and Hosting

If you are serious about your online business (which you need to be) then you need your own domain name. There are free services out there that you can use to create a website such as Blogger.com, WordPress.com and Weebly.com. Unless you are really strapped for cash we advise you not to use these services.

The reason for this is that people are a lot more Internet savvy than they used to be. They know that Blogger is a free website service and if you launch your business on a free platform like this then you are just going to look cheap.

You have to sell things to create a 6 figure online business. Trying to sell products and services from a free website is not going to work well. It is very important that you invest in a domain name and some web hosting.

You can get a .com domain name from Namecheap.com for less than $10 a year. There are many web hosting companies out there and you need a web host to make your website live on the Internet. You can get web hosting starting from $5 a month. It is important that the webhost you choose offers you a number of different features that we will explain in the section about setting up your website. For now we just want you to accept that having your own domain name is the best way to go. If you were setting up a conventional business it would cost you thousands. For an online business you can start with a $10 a year domain name and $5 – $15 a month web hosting. Make the right impression from the start.

In the next chapter we will discuss the different online business models that you can choose from… What kind of online business do you want to start? There are several ways that you can go with an online business. All of the models we cover in this section have the potential to provide a 6 figure business. You need to choose the one that you are most comfortable with.

A word of warning here – flitting around from one model to another is never going to turn out well. Many newcomers to online business start with one model and because they are not getting the results that they want they shift to another. There is always going to be someone that tells you that the grass is greener over here.

Once you have chosen your online business model you need to master it. There are always new things to learn about online business and it will be virtually impossible for you to keep up with all of the changes if you are dabbling with more than one model. So make your choice and stick to it. What Niche do you want to be in?

There are literally thousands of niches where you can create a 6 figure online business. If you are an expert in a particular niche then this is always a good place to start. It doesn’t matter if you are not an expert in a chosen niche because you can always learn. When choosing a niche you need to consider two things:

1. Is there a big demand?

2. Is there money in the niche?

Both of these are very important. You do not want to enter a niche where there is little demand. You may be interested in a particular topic, but if nobody else is then your online business will fail. We suggest that you choose an evergreen niche. This is a niche where the demand is always there 365 a year, every year.

Sample Content Preview

WHAT IS SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is used in all aspects of web marketing. You need to understand as much as you can about how SEO works in order to get the proper marketing of your website online.

When you use SEO in all of your content - both text and visual, you can draw more traffic to your site. In order to understand how to use SEO, you need to know why people use this type of marketing and rely on it so heavily in order to get the desired traffic to their website. SEO is what gets a website noticed in the search engines.

So what exactly is SEO? This sets up your text, photos and videos so that they are easy to find when someone is searching for them using the various search engines online. While it is often said that Google relies more on SEO content than Yahoo, which relies more on link building, the truth of the matter is that in order for a website to be discovered online, it must come up in the search engine.

For example, if you have a website that sells cooking appliances, you will want to make sure that you structure your site so that others who may be looking for the products you sell will be able to find it online. Those who are looking online for what you have to sell may do it in a number of different ways, although the easiest way for someone to find something online is to use the search engines.

Most of the traffic to your website will come from search engine opti-mization.

You need to know which keywords will work for your website. These are the words or phrases that people will put into the search engine bars to receive the search engine results pages. Many people today are putting in longer phrases into the search engines to narrow down their search.

There are tools that the website owner can use to investigate the best keywords for their website, based on what they sell and what words potential customers are likely to plug into the search bars that will lead them to the site. In order to succeed at this, a website owner must not only know the concept of SEO, but also much about the target market, which is those who are most likely to purchase the products on the website.

If you are just starting out your website, or if you have a website up and running already, you need to know how to use search engine optimization in all facets of your marketing. While there are other ways to market your website and products without using SEO, the fact of the matter is that 60 percent of all traffic on websites comes from those who found the website in the search engines.

These people are seeking out what you have to offer and are finding you online as long as you are accessible.

Once your site is search engine optimized, you can expect to get more traffic to your site from the search engines. People who may be interested in your site will find it easier if your website is search engine optimized. Most people use the search engines to find what they are looking for when they go online. By having your website optimized and easy to find in the search engine results pages, you can attract more traffic to your website through the search engines.

There are many internet marketing companies that will help you get your website search engine optimized and keep it that way. Some of the methods that they use to optimize a website include the following:

Article marketing

Blogs

Press Releases

Video ads

Google ads

All of these can be optimized in order to incorporate keywords that will make the website appear in the search engine results pages or, in the case of Google ads, land them on pages where they are most likely to find people who will be interested in your website. The entire purpose of making a website search engine optimized is to make it easier for potential clients or customers to visit your site.

Those who may be interested in your products or services can only take advantage of them if the know about them and where to get them. You have, most likely, gone on line in search of something that you wanted to buy at one time or another. Chances are that you put the information into the search engine toolbar to pull up search engine results pages. You probably sifted through a few pages before you came up with what you wanted.

This is the basic concept of SEO. Those who understand how to use SEO to make their website more searchable and likely to come up in the first two pages of the search engine results pages are more likely to have clients land on their site. There are probably many sites out there that offer you interesting information as well as products or services. Unfortunately, many of them are buried deep in the search engine results pages.

Most people, when searching online for something, will give up after going a few pages into the search engine results pages.

In some cases, a search may produce millions of hits. Needless to say, you do not want to go through every one in order to find what you are looking for. Most people have neither the time or the inclination to do this.

This is why it is so important for businesses and others who want to have their website noticed make sure that they use SEO techniques in order to do so. By using SEO, a website will no longer be buried in the middle or at the end of millions of results. It has a better chance of getting to the front of the search engine results pages.

Google and Yahoo are two of the search engines that use SEO. While there are those who say that both of them also rely heavily upon link building when it comes to page placement in the search engine results, both of them also rely heavily on search engine optimization. They send their search engine spiders and bots through the text to pick up keywords to help rank the page. The bots pick up both long tailed and regular keywords. Long tailed keywords are phrases that appear throughout the text and will be discussed in a later chapter of this book.

All of the search engines use SEO to some extent. While SEO is not the only factor that figures in to search engine results placement, it is a primary factor in this placement. Google, Yahoo, MSN and all of the other search engines all rely on SEO in the content to figure on placement in their pages. However, one search engine may rely on the SEO more than others.

If you do a search on Google, for example, chances are that you will pull up different results than if you plug the same keywords into the Yahoo search engine. Both of these giant search engines use SEO in order to determine rank, although they also figure in other factors. One factor that figures heavily in the Yahoo search engine rank6 ings (as it does in other search engines) is link building and page building. The search engine will rank a website higher if it has many links back to the site throughout the web. This is very prevalent with the giant information site, Wikipedia. You have probably noticed that this site often comes up when you are searching for information. That is because there are so many backlinks throughout the web that link back to this site.

When you are on a Wikipedia page, you will notice hyperlinks to other areas of the site. This large link network creates hundreds of thousands of pages that are all linked together to dominate the search engine results. In addition to link building, however, Wikipedia also uses SEO. If you study any Wikipedia article, you can pick out the keywords and see how often they are used.

Everyone who has a website online wants to make sure that they get their website noticed in the search engines. There are positive ways to do this and tricky ways to do this. Tricky ways are often called “black hat” techniques that can get a website banned from the search engines. This can be self defeating, so you want to be sure that you naturally build up your ranking in the search engines through the use of SEO and other strategies.

One way that you can naturally build up your rankings in the search engine is to properly implement SEO in all of the text that is committed to your website. You want to be sure not to use keyword stuffing, which is when you have too much of a keyword density in your text. You should have 2-3% keyword density for your text.

Sample Content Preview

Introduction

The ways in which we use social media are constantly changing and evolving. While initially a place for users to share photos with their family and friends and post aesthetically pleasing updates for people to be able to see what is happening in their lives; social media has increasingly become more integrated within consumer culture. Social media platforms have become increasingly more geared towards driving engagement and generating ad revenue.

Some audiences who are primarily still using social media to connect and be “social” have been more resistant to this switch— but others love this integration. There are a plethora of ways to bridge this gap and encourage all types of audiences to engage willingly, and happily, with business accounts.

As everyone surely knows, Instagram is one of the most popular photo sharing platforms on social media today. According to Instagram’s own data, over 200 million users visit at least one business profile each day, 60% of users say that they have discovered a new product on Instagram and one third of the stories that receive the most views are posted by businesses.

As with the social media market as a whole, there has been a shift from Instagram being a social platform, to it being a media platform that places emphasis on unique content creation, as well as business and marketing. This is evidenced by its recent layout change which prioritizes shopping features--at an inconvenience to many personal users but is incredibly useful for businesses trying to sell products via Instagram. While it can seem negative to discuss the poor reaction by some users to this change in the platform, it is still important to be able to gauge market reaction to certain features. For example, some demographics will require a different level, intensity, or subtleness of marketing to overcome their initial disdain for business features.

This eBook is divided into three overall sections: firstly, explaining Instagram Guides, secondly, how Guides can be used, and thirdly promoting the Guides.

To begin, this eBook will begin by providing an overview to what the Instagram Guide feature is.

Woven into this eBook is a discussion of the basics of Instagram.

Even if you have been marketing on Instagram before, the advent of new features always means that you should consider what the characteristics are and what, if any, the problem areas are, and, naturally, where the market is going in order to make more effective marketing choices For that reason we will be discussing the other kind of posts that are available to create an Instagram standard feed posts, stories (and of course highlights), Reels, IGTV videos, Facebook integration, and external links. It is important to understand the other kind of posts to understand where guys can truly benefit you the most--and which type of post is better suited for a Guide.

To conclude the introductory section, the eBook will delve into the to the pros and cons of Instagram Guides. This will provide you will a clear and detailed explanation of the new Guide’s feature.

The next section will provide a step-by-step side to creating Instagram Guides--the instructions will be basic, yet comprehensive, in order to provide you with the tools that you will need in order to create a Guide. This eBook will be providing a comprehensive outline to the new features available on Instagram Guides and how you can best utilize them to further your business.

Following this, we will discuss the kind of Guides that you can create: the ability to recommend places, posts, or products, as well as providing some inspiration and ideas.

To conclude, the third section will be discussing how you can promote Instagram Guides and how to use Guides to build your following.

This eBook will be providing you with everything that you need to know to create effective and creative Instagram Guides to target your audience and increase your business.

What Exactly Are Instagram Guides?

So, to begin, with what exactly are Instagram Guides? Instagram Guides are the hot new feature that the problem has just been added.

To reiterate, this section will be discussing the founding principles of Instagram Guides, before giving a step-by-step explanation into creating one in later chapters.

In more recent months Instagram has become, not only a platform for people sharing the highlights of their life but also a fantastic source of information. By introducing the Guides feature Instagram is capitalizing this and allowing users to share information in a whole new way.

Instagram Guides were implemented because the platform wanted a way for its users to more easily discover recommendations tips and other content from their favorite users. When Guides were first rolled out, they focused on ideas of “wellness”; with specific brands and organizations that were wellness oriented being able to use the feature first. Given how long many people spend on their phones, being able to get useful and actionable information—that is already integrated into the platforms that they already frequent, particularly on wellness topics was a fantastic idea.

Guides are a step-by-step flow of posts. Similar to a Story or video, Guides are a great way to show a running commentary of a particular element of business or add detail into certain aspects of your brand. They are somewhat similar to an article that you might link, instead it is an embedded feature in your profile. It is a great way to create unique content, yet still keep it on the same platform.

Essentially, Guides are a way that you can create one single resource around a specific topic or content area. They can consolidate your posts and thoughts into one single post, a Guide, and even supplement your own posts with those from other users.

Instagram Guides kind of resembles a blog post, in theory.

Guides can include text, photos and videos.

A huge benefit to the implementation of this feature is that some users are unlikely to leave a platform in order to get additional content; having to click a link to a website or another social media site turns a lot of users off of buying or engaging with your content. Guides are a great way to centralize your content onto one popular platform that your audience already uses.

Sample Content Preview

WHAT ARE GOOGLE TOOLS?

The search engine of Google has become a dominant force in the world of internet. It is really difficult to even think of any website without Google. Similarly, it has become unthinkable to view world without Google. The importance of Google can be judged from the fact that it has crept into every aspect of our daily lives. The phrase of “being Goggles” has become a common expression which is being said and performed by millions of users around the world. Google offers a diverse range of services from productivity applications to instant messaging.

Having such prominent presence, there are people who are still not aware that Google offers some excellent tools free of cost for the users be it generic users, businessman, marketers or webmasters. This develops a thought in majority of the people that why Google is providing so many tools at zero cost? The prime reason for this gesture is it wants to foster a close relationship with the users and wants to build up the Google brand name in the process.

There are numerous tools that are being offered by Google.

The tools are divided under various sections that can guide you the nature of all the tools.

1. Must Have Tools: These tools are the basic tools that are provided by Google. They can make the computer activities much easier. They include reader, IGoogle, Picasa, Docs, notebook and desktop.

2. Maps and Travel Tools: These type of tools helps in exploring the locations around the world. It may include Ride Finder, Transit, Mars, Sky and Earth.

3. Web Browsing and Development Tools: These tools are very beneficial for the users especially for Web developers, businesses and students. All these tools aid in creating and using the websites. They include Sketch Up, Checkout and Web accelerator, FeedBurner, Web History, Base, Co-OP, App Engine, Website Optimizer, Browser Sync, Click-to-Call and Page Creator.

4. Social Networking and Communication Tools: These tools have the capability to keep you in touch with your family members, peers, classmates and co-workers. The tools include Orkut, Android, Send to Phone, Shared Stuff, Talk, Dodgeball, Friend Connect, Grand Central and Sites.

5. Custom Search Tools: Through this tool, you have the option to refine or narrow down your search for the material. The tools may include Scholar, Patent Search, Sets, Catalogs, and Search by Number, Accessible Search, Trends, Books Search, News Archive Search and Special Searches.

6. Miscellaneous Google Tools: These are additional tools that can make you do different things in your spare time. The tools that are included in miscellaneous include Google Pack, Gadgets, Pinyin IME, Image Labeler, Code Search, Alerts, Apps, GOOG-411, Google Mobilizer and Gears.

7. Third Party Tools: These tools are associated with the Google’s search technology. However, they can enable you to do wide variety of stuff more easily compared to the existing Google programs. The tools included are Simply Google, Googlematic, Goofresh, Cooking with Google and Babelplex.

Hence, by using the above mentioned tools it will make your research easier along with time management.

HOW GOOGLE MARKETING TOOLS ARE HELPFUL FOR MARKETERS

The search engine of Google has become a very powerful marketing tool for the businesses whether big or small. For small enterprises it has been a blessing because they generally have very limited funds at their disposal. Hence, to use the plat-form of Google for marketing activities at a very meager rate it is a dream come true for small businesses. I extensively use Google for my business in various ways. Things like articles, ebooks, e-courses, blogs and various internet businesses have been hugely associated with these programs. Hence, this chapter will discuss in great length about the home page of the search engine in terms of customization and tool bar.

My business revolves around the Internet; hence my large part of the time is spent in front of my computer. My computer has huge data that is comprised of e-books, music, addresses, pictures, phone numbers, articles, home budget and feeds. As far as my business is concerned it revolves around blogs, websites, my space, social networking sites, articles, five e-mail accounts, opt-in list and newsletter.

All these data is helping me generate a substantial amount of money with the help of the search engine of Google.

My daily business routine starts on the computer from my Home page of Google. My Google home page is customized by me and hence it exhibits the bookmarks in the order I want them to open. In regards to feeds, RSS feeds, blog Feeds and other Feeds that I read are there on my home page. I start my work from the Google bar which helps me in earning money.

When starting any business, it is very hard to think that the whole business can be conducted online. There are people whose business initially was brick-n-mortar and now they have transformed them either partially or wholly in brick-n-click. My interest was to be an affiliate marketer where you make commissions on other user’s prod-ucts. The services for which I have to sign up involves chat rooms, information sites, traffic exchanges, forums, newsletters, social networking, blogs, auto-responders and various other services. Hence, the Google tool bar provides the option of Auto-fill where it fills your forms for the above mentioned services and saves you a great amount of time and effort.

Furthermore, there is the tool of spell checker on the Google bar which helps you in writing professional contents whether in articles, emails, chat rooms, blog spots, forums and other related platforms. Another vital tool is the Page-rank which, although has been underestimated, is one of promising tool used in marketing online. It moni-tors your site and the competitors’ sites which enables you to direct your marketing strategies to relevant areas. In addition, it will search out the back links of the competitor’s sites.

Lastly, Google has a vast amount of data from all corners of the world that is current and in great detail. Hence, it provides a perfect marketing arena for the businesses that can apply its marketing tools to their advantage.

GOOGLE MARKETING TOOLS

The tools that are being offered by the search engine of Google have been extensively used by the marketers and the media planners. Although the tools are designed for the generic users, they are being considered as ideal tools for the online marketing activities. Any marketer, media planner or webmaster who is involved in promoting their websites or products on the internet can extract huge benefits from the Google marketing tools.

These tools have the tendency to make your marketing tasks much easier and profitable in both short term and long run. They are valuable in nature. Listed below are the important marketing tools of the search engine of Google.

Google Analytics: This tool is considered to be one of the premier tools of marketing that is offered by Google. It is very accommodating to the users especially the webmasters and the marketers. The function of Google Analytics is it gives you a quick glimpse of your website. In other words, it evaluates the traffic on your website, their sources and what activities do they perform on your website. It can also be said that it monitors all the aspects of your website from inserting the contents to the checkout of your page. It plays an important role in increasing the conversion rate and the return on investment. A maximum of three sites can be managed simultaneously through this tool.

Google Sitemaps: With the help of the Google Sitemaps, various webmasters can quickly insert the newly designed pages to their websites through the Google Search Index function. The pages are in the XML format that is instantly uploaded to the website and eventually to Google.

Google Alerts: The role of the Google Alerts is to inform you about the listing of your website or reveals your name by either person or site. In this way, you have the benefit to monitor all your activities that are being performed on the internet.

Google Froogle: Google has a directory called Froogle that enlists all the economical prices for a wide range of products on the web. It will be very helpful for the marketers to make their products more prominent in the eyes of the users. All they have to do is study how the Froogle functions and you will avail the desired result.

Google Checkout: Although it charges some amount, it is very valuable for users who use Adwords as each dollar spent on Adwords would give them 10 dollars for free.

Google E-blogger: creating a blog on your website would attract additional customers to your website and eventually to your products. It is free to create.