Tips for Starting a New Online Business

One of the biggest mistakes that many businesses online and offline make is that they do not have a plan for success.  Even though it is an online business, you should still have a business plan and you should have a search marketing strategy and know that you are targeting a large enough market.  You should do searches online on Google, and Yahoo, and MSN, and see which of your competitors come up for that search term.

You should also do some market research analysis so that you know which search terms people are searching for the most.  Some search terms might only produce a couple, 10 or 20 searches a day, and other search terms might have several thousand a day.  You will need a big enough market to target because you will be sharing that market with your competitors. 

What it all comes down to in the end is that you have about 10 or 20 competitors on the front page of Google, Yahoo and MSN.  You need to do the following well, to compete with these competitors. 

1. Your website needs to have a better presentation than your competitors.  This means a more engaging demonstration of the products and services you sell.

2. You need to come up as high as possible in the search engines either through search engine marketing or paid sponsored ads also known as pay-per-click. 

3. Optimize your website so that search engines can find you organically.  This is also known as search engine optimization.

Common Mistakes Beginners Make

1. They start targeting and promoting keywords before they know the value of the keywords they are promoting. 

2. When using pay-per-click advertising, they direct everyone to the front page of their website.  As much as possible, direct your ads to a detailed web page which matches up to your prospective customers search term. 

Tips for a Successful Online Advertising Campaign

1. Have a customized landing page, which takes the prospective customer to the exact product, or service page for which they are searching.  

2. To have a cost effective online marketing strategy there needs to be enough people searching for your product or service. 

For example, if someone is searching for a particular type of guitar, your ad should feature that particular type of guitar.  The more specific you are and the less searching the perspective customer has to do once they get to your web page, the more likely they are to contact you, buy your product, or take the action you want them to take. 

You will need to research which search terms or keywords are searched on more frequently than other search terms so that you can make sure that you have the largest audience possible. You can do this using Google's keyword tool.  Doing just this small amount of market research can make the difference between success or failure of your online business venture. 

For example, if you're selling Widget A and there's only ten people a day in your area searching for Widget A, you are not going to be very successful.  If however, there are 100,000 people a day searching for a Widget A and you only have two competitors who also sell Widget A, then there is room for you in that market.

Google's Keyword Tool and How to Use it

The first place to start with researching your keywords is the Google keyword tool, found here:  https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal.  Below are some useful features of Google's keyword tool:

1. You can enter various phrases describing your businesses products or services into the search box.  The tool will give you results on different phrases and synonyms matching your description.  It will also tell you which search terms produce the largest amount of traffic on a monthly basis.

2. If you are targeting the entire United States then the monthly traffic column per keyword is very accurate.  If you are targeting a particular state within the United States then you would need to divide that number by the percentage of population in that state.

3. Google's keyword tool also has a column that indicates the average cost per click for each search term.  This can be helpful for forecasting how much to price your product or service.  For example, if you are selling something for .00 and it costs you .00 to get enough people to your website before anyone buys your product then you need to rethink your pricing model.  If however, your product sells for .00 and it only costs you .00 in advertising before someone buys your product, then you have a cost effective marketing campaign. 

Other Search Engine Marketing Strategies

In addition to pay-per-click, you can pursue search engine marketing techniques such as: 

1. Article Marketing

2. Directory Marketing

3. Community Forum Marketing

4. Channel Partner Marketing

The goal of all of these marketing techniques is to get a higher search engine ranking for the search terms you are targeting.  All of the methods above include backlinks to your website.  Backlinks to your website is the number one criteria used by search engines to rank your website.

Online Market Penetration

After you have done your market research, the next thing you will want to do is to determine if it is a growing market.

One of the ways you can discover if you are in a growing market is by using Google Trends.  When using Google Trends, enter a search term which describes your business or industry into the search box and view the trend line in the results.  If the trend line is moving up then you are in a growing market.  If the trend line is moving down, then you are in a declining market.  This will give you a good indication if it would be worthwhile for you to launch your business.

Another way to tell if there is room for you in a particular market is to look at your online competitors.  Often times if their websites have not been updated in a while, it can indicate they are doing a good business.  Also, if you have to scroll down to the second or third page of the search results before you find a decent looking web page, that can indicate a large market. 

If you want a successful online business, follow these steps:  Do the market research, do a competitive analysis and research the market trends for your industry, then you will be successful in your new online business.

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The 3 Cs of Clickbank Affiliate Marketing by Jo Han Mok #1 Bestselling Author of The E-Code
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Not many people know this...

But choosing a profitable product from the Clickbank marketplace to promote involves more than it's gravity score.

It also depends on the effectiveness of the salesletter to convert visitors into customers and as we will be discussing today it also involves commissions, cost and continuity.

It is important that you take all of these factors into consideration before you choose a product to promote.

After all you will be investing time, energy and possible advertising dollars to promote the product properly.

As part of your criteria you will want to consider these things.

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COMMISSIONS:
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What is the commission?

As an affiliate, you should try to find products that offer a commission of at least per sale.

Anything below that amount usually isn't worth your time and effort to promote heavily.

Especially if you are planning on spending advertising dollars to promote it. While there are exceptions to this rule depending on what market you are in, it is a
good guideline to add to your criteria.

Keep in mind that it will take just as much effort to market a low priced product as it will to market a higher priced product.

You will find products in the Clickbank marketplace that range anywhere from few dollars to hundreds of dollars.

The key is to find one that meets your criteria and fits well into your overall marketing strategy.

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COST:
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How much does the product cost?

This is important because if the price is set too low not only mean less profits for you it often leads the customer to believe that the product is of little or no value to them.

On the other hand, prices set too high can have an impact as well, because it can prevent interested customers from making an immediate purchase.

If they have to take time to think about making the purchase chances are they will leave the site and never return.

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CONTINUITY:
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Continuity is another factor that you may want to consider.

In addition to commission and cost, another thing you may want to consider are products with continuity.

Continuity products are ones that offer a monthly membership program to their customers.

These are often a great addition to your product line up because they will pay you commissions on a regular basis, usually monthly.

They make very nice back end offers as well.

Often these products offer a lower commission rate, however the fact the you will be earning a residual income from them means that you have the potential of making far more over time.

Just like with other products, it takes the same amount of effort to market a product with continuity, so make sure that it meets your other criteria for profitability as well.

As you can see it take a little bit of time and research when it comes to choosing profitable Clickbank products to promote.

But, by taking the time to choose the right product you will save yourself from wasted time, effort and money promoting products that just don't sell.

When it comes to choosing profitable products you need to decide on the best criteria for your business, that includes the proper gravity, a good salesletter, nice commissions at the right price.

If you can match up all the factors in your criteria then you can be confident that you've chosen a good product to promote.

All that remains then, is to promote, and profit!

Any successful business needs a plan, and in affiliate marketing, the plan is primary. There needs to be a template to work form, a set of goals and steps that will guide your subsequent actions. Plans can be general outlines or extremely detailed write ups or anything in between. The important thing is just to get a plan you can act on and to really start doing it. There isn't necessarily one right way to write an affiliate marketing business plan, but the following are some common elements such a plan might include.

Identifying Niche

You might want to start off an affiliate marketing plan by identifying the niche that you'd like to pursue. Niches are specific marketing areas that an affiliate marketer focuses on. If you don't have large amounts of ad revenue and so on the niches you choose should have demand and traffic but not be too competitive. There is a lot of competition in this business by now but that doesn't mean that all niches have the same amount of competition, and you want to identify areas in your affiliate marketing plan that have a level of competition that is reasonable and manageable.

Keyword List

Certain niches have certain keywords and keyword types associated with them. Making a keyword list is thus something that you will probably want to include in your affiliate marketing plan. You can use the Google keyword tool or other utilities, or simply do web searches on your topic to find commonly used keywords and add them to the list. Then try different combinations of these words or synonyms of them.

Marketing Avenues/Traffic Generation

You need to identify the marketing avenues you will take in your affiliate marketing business. There is a wide range of ways to get traffic to come to your website or other landing page. These include things such as article marketing, blog commenting, forum posting, email newsletters, and blogs of your own. You need to identify these areas of concentration in your business plan.

Content Creation

Use of the above avenues requires writing content, so you may want to set up a schedule of content generation. You also want to identify whether you will be writing the content yourself or hire writers to provide it. You can just make a brief outline of the types of content you expect to make and how you will go about generating it on a regular basis.

Checking of Statistics

Checking statistics such as how many hits a site gets and how many conversions are taking place daily will give you a sense of the overall performance of your affiliate marketing campaign. So in your plan, identify the ways these stats are checked and how often you will make an overall assessment of how well your campaign is doing. In affiliate marketing, the plan is the first step. These are a few items to include in it. There are others as well, but the main thing is to get a plan that works for you and gives you a good overall sense of what you need to do. Once you have some sort of plan, you're ready to take action!