Sunday, August 31, 2008

What Can You Do To Make Money Today?

One aspect of making money online that often gets overlooked is providing a service for the millions of website and blog owners. Let's look at this closer.

Most website and blog owners do not have the knowledge, time, or money to do everything it takes to run an online business these days. This can be good news for you.

You can make money by providing a service that solves a problem for all of these webmasters. If you are smart you will get a pen and piece and paper and start writing after you finish reading this.

What do you know how to do that you could do for someone. One Internet marketer started an article writing company a couple of years ago for his son. They ended up developing it into a full time income.

Another service broke off from that. The service is writing and submitting articles because they had so many requests to market the articles they were writing for their customers.

The same marketer helped a friend start a business building blogs for people because blogging is so important today and many people do not know how to set up their own.

They started writing blog articles as well because of the number of blogs there are online today. They are just written little shorter than regular articles so people can paste them in their blogs.

Other people make money online providing these type of service as well...

- website customization

- search engine optimization

- managing pay per click campaigns

- creating software

- publishing newsletters for people

- posting comments in blogs

- website building

- providing customer service via phone and email

- posting in forums

- ghostwriting

- set up autoresponder email campaigns

- create videos for blog owners

- customize private label right products

- do telemarketing for mlm business owners

- create graphics and sell them

This is just a few ideas.. You may think of others.

It’s pretty much guaranteed that if there is a need for a service on the Internet there are people willing to pay you to do it for them.

The quickest way to make your service known online is to set up a sales page describing your service.

Then add a PayPal button for ordering.

Finally join several Internet marketing forums and set up a signature file letting people know what you offer. Include a link back to your sales page.

As your business grows start a testimonial page and ask for referrals from your satisfied customers.

You will probably never get rich providing a service, but you can make a very good living over time, and you get to stay at home which beats going to work everyday for someone else.

(C) Writing Career

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Freelancing from Home: Finding Clients in Hidden Markets

Whether you are just getting started in the world of freelancing or if you have been a freelancer for years, one thing that often comes up is how to get clients. Some freelancers loose sleep over their lack of new clients and they often try to look for hidden markets that they didn't know about before.

It is much easier to find hidden freelancing markets with an open mind and with the muscle behind your dreams to make it happen. What muscle? The muscle you need to develop: the ability to ask for work and clients. If you want to find new markets for your talents you will need to ask around, either to your freelancing friends, to your existing clients or by cold calling or cold emailing.

Myth: Finding Clients is Hard
There are many myths about freelancing but the worst one is that finding clients is hard. The reality is that if you don't ask for referrals from your existing clients and if you don't put yourself out there, you might struggle to get clients. But potential clients are out there just waiting for you to appear into their life and solve their problems.

Fact: Taking Action is Necessary
How do you develop this muscle that helps you ask for clients and ask for work? You simply put it into practice. Start with emailing the firms and clients that you would like to work with. Tell them in a short email who you are, what you do, how much you charge and how you could help them with their business needs. Sometimes you might be able to tell them that their competitors are doing something that they haven't done yet and you can guide them through the process.

Don't be afraid to send out cold emails. These companies or potential clients are always looking for freelancers and they might just be short one freelance designer, writer or programmer at the exact time that you write them. Otherwise they might decide to put your name and contact information in a file for when they are short of freelancers in the future.

Putting yourself out there through cold emails and by asking your existing clients if they know anyone else who might use your services is hard. It takes developing your muscle, and that takes practice. You will get rejected at some point. But the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages.

So what are you waiting for? Get started on your freelancing business today and send out some emails to your existing clients or to potential ones. May you find the clients you have always wanted.

(C) Writing Career

Friday, August 29, 2008

Build A Blog for Business

Blogging used to be just a method for stating your opinion, but now blogs are used to opine, to review, and to sell. In fact, many Internet marketers base their entire business around blogging.

Here's why.

Blogging is really just basic communication. All it takes is a computer and an internet connection and you can set up a free blog on one of the many blogging services.

Its flexibility is also one of its outstanding features. There are numerous platforms to blog from, from Wordpress to Joomla to Drupal, and dozens more in between. And even if you don't want to host your blog, you can set one up at one of the many free blog services like Blogger or Wordpress.com. And even if you use the free services, you can always take your blog to your own server at a later date.

Many people also feel that blogs create an intimate atmosphere for learning and research. A blog can create a simple credibility that can help sell your products because it helps create an "Everyman" aura, that is, a stripped down, hype-free way to talk about products.

If your opinions get read and respected, you might find that your credibility will begin to increase around a particular subject. People will begin to look to you to offer your opinions on forthcoming issues. And once you are established and considered an expert in a niche, your ability to sell from your blog will increase dramatically.

Once you are established, don't be afraid to ask people to sign up to your list. This will be a list where you can reach your readers at a moment's notice. A great way to utilize this list is to send a message to it when you have made a new post to your blog, and encourage your readers to not only read your new article but comment on it.

By using your list in this manner, your subscribers won't feel that you are using your list merely to sell to them. Of course, you can sell to them from your blog, and if your readers begin to comment on your posts, you are helping to enhance your blog's stickiness.

Blogging is a terrific tool for any Internet marketing business. Done in the correct manner (meaning that if you intend to build your credibility, you should blog in the most personal manner possible), you'll be blogging your way to success in no time.

(C) Writing Career

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Set Up A Blogging Schedule

Does the thought of scheduling your blogging seem so... uncreative? Posting to your blog shouldn't happen only when you feel "moved" to create an award-winning post. Blogging needs to be done regularly to provide good content for your readers and to maximize your profits.

Set yourself up with a schedule to post on your blogs. Take a realistic look at your business and figure out how blogging can fit in. The object is not to be constantly blogging, forsaking all else, but to bring blogging forward a bit from your low priority pile of things to do. Take a look at your business model and where blogging fits in. If your blogs are currently your only platform for making money, then blogging should be high priority.

Your blogging schedule is up to you and can certainly be changed when your circumstances change. Perhaps you're going to temporarily blog daily on your Internet Marketing blog because you're promoting an affiliate product or you're just about to launch your new ebook. On a regular week you might consider blogging everyday, but alternating between all your blogs.

The important things is to think about your blogging ahead of time and create your schedule for the week. Also keep in mind the time of day that is available to you for blogging, especially if you're a part-time internet marketer. Will mornings from 7:00 am to 7:30 pm work? And how about lunchtime from 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm?

While you're thinking ahead about your blogging, get a rough plan down on paper about what your blog subjects will be for each of the posts you're going to post in the week ahead. If you can't think of something right away, it will be a seed planted in your mind and you'll come up with a great idea before it's time to write it.

Try to find ways to streamline your posting. If your blogs are in a related field, you can sometimes modify your blog post to fit all your blogs. If your blogs are in very different fields you may still want to do the same sort of post to save time. For example, if you want to post a YouTube video, you can look for different videos for your different blogs all at once.

Scheduling your blogging may not be a creative endeavor, but it can make your blogging more successful nonetheless. A blogging schedule can help you become a consistent blogger who doesn't lose readers for lack of posts and can also help you maximize your profits.

(C) Writing Career

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Improve Your Internet I.Q. Before You Earn Money as a Freelancer

It really is amazing how many people will go online and try to start a business with the expectations that they do not have to learn anything.

In this article let's talk a little bit more about that.

There are 2 keys to what the main point is here:

1. You are trying to start a business online.

2. This means using a computer and the internet.

When most people start out online they do not know what they are doing. Many of us can barely send email.

Most successful internet freelancers are naturally curious, however and that is what propels them on to the next level of their business. They never stop learning and they do get better all of the time.

Most quickly realized that if they are going to have a website they will need to learn HTML code. At the very least they will have to learn some of the basics.

This is how many start out. Take an existing page and paste it in a file and then play around with it from there. You can learn to build a table, hyperlink keywords, bold and underline, and so on just from this. Never practice live as you do not want to lose a file or mess up an existing page.

This is not rocket science and if you are going to have a website be prepared to learn how to build pages or to pay someone to build page.

Now granted blogging is just about as good as it gets for building web pages. WordPress for example will build the pages for you if you can type. That is very easy and something you will need to learn how to do if you want to compete online in the future.

You may even want to take a basic computer class if you can not send email, type very well, create a word document, copy and paste, and so on.

We have not even talked about internet marketing yet. Getting traffic is so important. Converting it into sales pays the bills. Finding products to sell is a must. Anyway, you get the idea.

Remember you are going to try and make money online using your computer so you need to improve your internet I.Q. This can be done by anyone with average intelligence so do not chicken out just be prepared to work at it.

Effective Internet Marketing Tools that Work

Anyone who owns a website knows the importance of internet marketing tools. You may have a terrific idea for a website with an excellent product or service, superb design, content and functionality but if you do not use the right tactics, your site may not attract the all important highly targeted traffic. Getting a lot of traffic into a site has very little to do with the site itself but with how the webmaster or site owner advertises it. With hundreds of competing sites, you must employ the most effective internet marketing tools that will truly deliver results.

There are different internet marketing tools that you can use. All these techniques and methods aim at increasing your website traffic. You must find a way for web surfers to find your site. To do this, you must put yourself in the shoes of your prospective visitors and future clients and see the internet through their eyes. Where do they usually go whenever they are looking up something on the web? The answer is the search engine; in fact, the two most popular websites on the web today are both search engines and portals. Thus, you should focus your internet marketing efforts on the search engine.

People will usually search for something using a search engine and click on the top results that these engines give. Therefore, you must use the right internet marketing tools to get a high search engine ranking. To gain a high ranking in search results, you can use several internet marketing tools. Search engine optimization is a set of methods that are aimed at improving the visibility of your site in search engine results. Since a search engine indexes sites by looking at its keyword density, your site's content must have favorable keyword density that is search engine friendly. Content is one of the most important internet marketing tools itself. If you have excellent content that is geared towards achieving a high search engine ranking as well as provide information then you can expect a high search engine ranking. However, this is not as easy as it sounds. Countless other sites may be using the same internet marketing tools as you do. Thus, you must continuously find new ways of attracting more traffic.

Aside from the traditional marketing techniques such as print ads, billboards, brochures, testimonials, flyers etc. you must use other more effective internet marketing tools to gain more traffic. One of the most popular internet marketing tools today is the use of Pay per Click advertising. In this method, you will bid for a particular keyword in a specific search engine. If you have the highest bid then your sites link will be the top result. This internet marketing tool is now being used by thousands of sites. It is also gaining popularity because of its relatively high success rate in attracting high traffic.

(C) Writing Career

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Ace Your Ad Copy with These Tips

What percentage of prospects come your way as a result of your ad copy? What percentage of sales do you close because of your ads? Well, increase both percentages with some of our tips, tailored to your own ad campaigns.

1. ERRORS -- It's tough to have 100 percent perfect ad copy. Nearly impossible! So tell your readers that whoever spots five errors in your ad copy due to grammar issues or misspelled words, wins a reward. This way your readers will not only be reading your copy longer, increasing the likelihood of purchasing awhile they're at it, you'll get editing done at no charge for your revised printing or online publication.

2. YES -- Lead your readers to the conclusion you want; that is to say, "Yes" to your offer, by asking them several yes and no questions in your ad copy that have affirmative answers. Have the questions be based on the main offer and focus on what will happen if they do not buy. But don't set a negative tone by having them reply "No." Or by the time they're through reading, they might say, "No" to you!

3. CHARITY -- Tie in a percentage of your sales with one of your favorite charities. And make mention of this in your ad copy. This is a win-win strategy because your company gives back to society plus your clients read about it; it improves your image in their eyes and shares your concerns. And they give, too. Everyone helps each other.

4. GUARANTEE -- Include a good, solid guarantee in your offer. For examples, look at the last thing you purchased and check out the guarantee. In a nutshell, make it a lifetime offer and / or give them back MORE than they gave you.

5. PS -- Since most people look for this feature, add it! Say something in your P.S. -- like give them a Bonus offer if they reply by a certain deadline. Or focus on your best reason why the reader should buy -- and NOW.

6. CONTACT -- Do include complete contact information -- that works! Test any email addresses and telephone numbers before going to press

So next time you need to ace your ad copy, go back over what you wrote and tweak it here and there for improvements. Better yet, have a contest and invite your readers to do it for you! How's that for a win-win solution?!

(C) Writing Career