Make Money Working From Home
If you are looking for an easy way to earn income working from home, bake cookies. Just about everyone loves cookies and they are really good, selling what you bake can lead to a generous income. Of course, there are regulatory compliance issues you will have to address and quality control to insure no one gets ill from eating your home baked cookies. However, it is an easy way to make extra money.
However, not everyone is good with an oven and although you may make one kind of cookie better than others, a variety of customers will want a variety of cookies. It may be easier to sell someone elses products than it is coming up with one of your own. There are bakeries living in cyberspace that make some darn good products and they have the licenses and quality reputation to back them up.
The idea is not just for cookies. With all of the websites and companies offering sales of just about everything under the stars, including the ability to name the stars, you can find products to sell that have already been invented. You do not have to go to the trouble of finding new methods to promote, that has been done as well. Learn from the pros and you can begin to make money working from home.
Look into affiliate marketing, a tried and true means of adding to your income. Market your site and let other companies deal with the customer issues, carry the inventory and handle all the shipping. An easy way to make money from home is to promote your website, affiliate with other companies and when your visitors make a purchase from your affiliates site, you get the sales commission.
You can connect with a few companies that offer high commissions or several smaller ones that offer lower commissions and still realize the same amount of income. However, you will want to be hooked up with companies that offer products in which your visitors will be interested. Simply slapping some ads on your site to other companies will not get the job done. You will have to continually update your ad program to keep your page looking fresh.
Return visitors who see the same ads in the same position each time may see your site as old and outdated and not come back. By changing your ads, at minimum with the seasons, you can reflect a more updated appearance every time a visitor returns. Many companies will have short term promotions and you can push those on your landing page and change them when the deal is over. Keeping up to date on all special offers can also let your visitors know that you are in charge of the site and not the advertisers
Obinna Heche:
Delivering the best home based business ideas and opportunities so you can work at home successfully..
http://www.homeincomeportal.com/obhmy365/
The Surprising Items Found At Some Online Stores
Following any such online search, the shopper does not head home hungry and exhausted. After an online search, a shopper typically sits at home. Some of the items available in online stores cater to the needs of a home-bound shopper.
A facial cream might be greatly desired by an online shopper. Such a shopper might feel shy about exposing his or her face to public view. Such a shopper might want to purchase the chemicals used in an Obagi blue peel. Those chemicals are designed to treat facial skin.
Other online skin-care products can aid the healing of a body part far from the face. A product called “Spa” found at an online store, contains tiny beads. By applying those beads to the feet, one can obtain smoother and softer feet.
Not all health care products sold over the Internet promise a treatment for the skin. The Global Healing Center offers a product called “Oxy-Powder”. The makers of that Powder have promised that it can assist with the cleansing of the colon. Clearly, the items on the Internet can clean one’s body on both the inside and the outside.
Yet not all of the chemicals sold in online stores come packaged in a health-care product. Some of the chemicals sold online are purchased as part of a business to business transaction. ChemaZone company, for example, offers online access to chemicals intended for laboratory use. They are chemicals that can aid the efforts of agrochemists, biochemists, biologists, chemists, medicinal chemists, researchers, scientists, and experts in life sciences and the pharmaceutical industry
Businesses that rely on the Internet want online access to stores that sell their needed products. That fact leads to the appearance online of some strange items. Printers, for example purchase a great many items from online stores. Since printers must often check the pH of their ink and paper, they purchase pH papers from online stores.
A store with sweet-smelling soaps can be found by conducting an online search. In addition, the online shopper can purchase many different types of jewelry with just a tap on his or her “mouse”. Loops, charms and birthstone jewelry can all be found in one or more of the pictures in an online store.
An ailing online shopper might want to buy a home diagnostic test. A depressed shopper has the ability to seek out an online “cure” for his or her depression. That cure might be some type of sex toy, or it might be some exciting piece of sports memorabilia.
Kevin Dark offers to purchase rare chemicals at http://www.chemazone.com
Do Your Potential Customers Forget You?
Your web business probably gets product inquiries from potential customers around the globe. Inquiries come via e-mail and your web site, and you try to send information to each hot prospect as quickly as you can. You know that you can drastically increase the likelihood of making a sale by satisfying each person’s need for information quickly!
But, after you’ve delivered that first bit of information to your prospect, do you send him any further information?
If you are like most Internet marketers, you don’t.
When you don’t follow that initial message with additional information later on, you let a valuable prospect slip from your grasp! This is a potential customer who may have been very interested in your products, but who lost your contact information, or was too busy to make a purchase when your first message reached him.
Often, a prospect will purposely put off making a purchase, to see if you find him important enough to follow up with later. When he doesn’t receive a follow up message from you, he will take his business elsewhere.
Are you losing profits due to inconsistent and ineffective follow up?
Following up with leads is more than just a process - it’s an art. In order to be effective, you need to design a follow up system, and stick to it, EVERY DAY! If you don’t follow up with your prospects consistently, INDIVIDUALLY, and in a timely fashion, then you might as well forget the whole follow up process.
Consistent follow up gets results!
When I first started marketing and following up with prospects, I used a follow up method that I now call the “List Technique.” I had a large database containing the names and e-mail addresses of people who had specifically requested information about my products and services.
These prospects had already received my first letter by the time they requested more information, so I used the company’s latest news as a follow up piece. I would write follow up newsletters every now and then, and send them, in one mass mailing, to everyone who had previously requested information from me. While this probably did help me win a few additional orders, it wasn’t a very good follow up method. Why isn’t the “List Technique” very effective?
The List Technique isn’t consistent. Proponents of the List Technique tend to only send out follow up messages when their companies have “big news”.
List Technique messages don’t give the potential customer any additional information about the product or service in question. He can’t make a more informed buying decision after receiving a newsletter! If someone is wondering whether your company sells the best knick-knacks, what does he care that you’ve just moved your headquarters?
List Technique messages convey a “big list” mentality to your potential customers. When I used to write follow up messages using the List Technique, I was writing news bulletins to everyone I knew! I should have been sending a personal message to each individual who wanted to know more about my products.
What follow up method really works?
Following up with each lead individually, multiple times, but at set intervals, and with pre-written messages, will dramatically increase sales! Others who use this same technique confirm that they have all at least doubled the sales of various products! In order to set this system up, though, you need to do some planning.
First, you’ll need to develop your follow up messages. If you’ve been marketing on the Internet for any length of time, then you should already have a first informative letter. Your second letter marks the beginning of the follow up process, and should go into more detail than the first letter. Fill this letter with details that you didn’t have the space to add to the first letter. Stress the BENEFITS of your products or services!
Your next 2-3 follow up messages should be rather short. Include lists of the benefits and potential uses of your products and services. Write each letter so that your prospects can skim the contents, and still see the full force of your message.
The next couple of follow up messages should create a sense of urgency in your prospect’s mind. Make a special offer, giving him a reason to order NOW instead of waiting any longer. After reading these follow up messages, your prospect should want to order immediately!
Phrase each of your final 1 or 2 follow up messages in the form of a question. Ask your prospect why he hasn’t yet placed an order? Try to get him to actually respond. Ask if the price is to high, the product isn’t the right color or doesn’t have the right features, or if he is looking for something else entirely. (By this time, it’s unlikely that this person will order from you. However, his feedback can help you modify your follow up letters or products, so that other prospects will order from you.)
The timing of your follow up letters is just as important as their content. You don’t want one prospect to receive a follow up the day after he gets your initial informative letter, while another prospect waits weeks for a follow up!
Always send an initial, informative letter as soon as it is requested, and send the first follow up 24 hours afterwards. You want your hot prospects to have information quickly, so that they can make informed buying decisions!
Send the next 2-3 follow up messages between 1 and 3 days apart. Your prospect is still hot, and is probably still shopping around! Tell him about the benefits of your products and services, as opposed to your competitors’. You will make the sale!
Send the final follow up messages later on. You certainly don’t want to annoy your prospect! Make sure that these last letters are at least 4 days apart.
Following up effectively seems complicated, but it doesn’t have to be! So many potential customers are lost because of poor follow up - don’t you want to be one of the few to get it right?
Reprinted with express permission of Tom Kulzer, of Aweber, a well known company with 7 years managing opt-in follow up and newsletters for small businesses, email deliverability is an integral part of day to day operations. Find out more at http://www.emailsdelivered.us
Ecommerce Hosting for Beginners
When you are first starting out in ecommerce, it can be confusing, trying to choose a host for your website. There are so many options out there, and such varying prices, anywhere from free to hundreds of dollars per year, that it can be downright hard to pick the right one. If you know what you are looking for, you can narrow your search down rapidly and make the best choice for you and your business. This article will cover the basics that you need to keep in mind in order to make the best decision in web hosting.
First, you need to decide what it is that you need. Are you looking at a one page site to sell your new ebook? Or will you be setting up a veritable catalog of products? This will determine the amount of space that you will require.
You will also need to ask yourself how much service you need. Will you be designing from scratch (or hiring someone to do so) or do you prefer to have a preset template that you can customize to your business? Will you want extras like hit counters and guestbooks? A blog, perhaps? Decide what services you need ahead of time and write them down so you can refer to your list each time you check out an ecommerce hosting site.
There are thousands of free hosts online and you might be tempted to go with one of them. This can be a good way to get started, but only if you find the right one. You don’t want lots of popup ads that will cause your visitors to get annoyed and leave, and it is usually a good idea to find a host that allows you to add your own Google Adsense or other monetizing methods to the site. A free site that offers domain name hosting is a must for a real business, as well. You will want to read the fine print in the Terms and Conditions, as well, since many free hosts don’t allow selling on their sites.
When trying to select a paid ecommerce hosting site, you will want to check the amount of space that they allow you. Make sure that it is enough to host all the photos of your current products, plus double that. You want room to expand in the future. Perhaps one of the best ways to go is with a host that offers upgrades. This allows you to start off paying a low amount for a small website and lets you upgrade to more space and benefits as you need them.
There is no need to pay extravagant prices for an ecommerce hosting website, but you will usually get better service and more reliable servers if you pay something. Often, a paid web host will include a variety of free web mastering tools and they also tend to be more flexible which allows you to use templates or create your own design from scratch. You can also expect better customer service with these hosts and some even include the domain name for free!
Finding the right webhost can be a challenge, but with these tips in mind, you should be fine. There are so many to choose from that if you have your list of needs at hand, you will be sure to find just the right host.
I’ve been in business and a business coach since 1985, my expertise is in marketing and sales, both off line and online. I’ve partnered with David Vallieres to bring you an online course called Think and Succeed Training. For more information go to our site: http://www.course-internet-marketing.com
Choose a Commerce Server to Suit Your Needs
If you are a savvy webmaster who wants to take his business online, commerce hosting must be one of your top priorities. The truth is that the economical environment is changing at an alarming rate. Big and small sites are bringing good products into the homes of many internet users, and this is just the beginning.
So why not grab a piece of the pie yourself and start an online business? After all, there are enough success stories available out there which are not simple fiction. They can make anyone with enough ambition and commitment seriously think about making a living online.
But first of all, let’s define what e-commerce actually is: it is the action of marketing, selling and distributing products over the internet. With the help of an online store, that is. If you don’t have an online store, you have no business.
Making money online is also done through many other means than just by making an online store. But ecommerce success is probably the easiest place to start, and best begun by building your own specialized online shop.
In your online business, having very good commerce hosting is an important battle to be won. Making sure that you have safe and reliable hosting is a must, and clients need to feel like they can safely make an online purchase from you. If customers lack confidence in your website’s quality, they will simply take their business elsewhere.
There are basically two options for your commerce hosting: a shared server or a dedicated server. The differences between the two are great, both in terms of quality and in price.
If you choose shared hosting, it means that you will have to share your server with many other different websites. This means slower web pages, because of less band width, and much less customization.
If, on the other hand, you choose a dedicated server, it will work entirely for you. You will be the only one on it and you will share bandwidth with nobody. You will be able to personalize everything and install the pieces of software that you like the most.
Of course, a dedicated server doesn’t come cheap. Everything that has more quality also has a higher price. It can go to a few hundred dollars a month, as opposed to shared hosting which is usually just a few dollars per month. Which one is best for you, if financial considerations are not your only guide?
In the end your business will guide you in making the right server choice. You need to carefully analyze your business and see what it needs. Which type of server is essential for your business’ success?
Big businesses almost always benefit from choosing a dedicated server. The demands of a high traffic website with lots of buying customers simply won’t be best met by shared hosting. If it is a big business, you are probably better off with a dedicated server.
If on the other hand you are just starting your online business, it makes sense to consider the less expensive option. Not only will a shared server save on costs, it is likely to be perfectly adequate for your business needs.
Once you’ve operated your online business site for some time, re-evaluate your decision. You may find you have outgrown a shared server, and its limitations are costing you money.
Alternatively, it could be that business drops off and there’s really no reason to pay for a dedicated server. Remember to reconsider your options not just once, but again at specified time periods throughout the lifetime of your business.
Expert tips, advice and guidelines on business server selection
http://www.commercehostingdirect.com
Choose a reliable commerce server at a rate you can afford
http://www.commercehostingnet.com
3 Easy Steps That Will Keep Your Online Business Running Smoothly
As an Internet marketing professional, one truth of the business is that when your Website doesn’t work, you have no business. Server interruptions can cost serious Internet Marketers thousands of dollars in just a few hours of down time.
Funny enough, most marketers don’t have a backup plan in place when a server goes down and the money making entity, namely your Website is not accessible by existing and potential customers.
Here are three vital steps you must take to keep your online business running smoothly:
Step 1: Your Support Should Be On a Different Server or Host
When your business Website server goes down, there is not much you can do about it. It is a fact of doing business online, and unless you actually own your servers and pay an employee to maintain them, you are at the mercy of your hosting company.
Savvy Internet marketers know the importance of having customer service and support areas of the Website hosted on a different server or with a different hosting service altogether.
This means that if the main site goes down, the support site does not. Existing and potential clients can still access certain parts of your site such as their accounts. You can also use the support section of your Website to post alerts about the server situation on the rest of the site.
By keeping customer service and support services on a separate server or host, you are assured that you still have a certain level of continuity and communication with your customers, without dropping off the face of the Internet altogether.
Step 2: Choose a Hosting Company that Offers Auto Backup Service
Many quality hosting companies offer a backup service. This can work in one of two ways. The economy version of backup services means that your host will regularly (usually daily) and automatically back up the entire contents of your Website.
This means that if the server outage is severe and any of your Website content is lost or corrupted, your host has a recent and full back-up of the entire site that can be reinstalled when the server issue is fixed.
The better version of back-up services means that the hosting company actually has a mirror site so that if a server goes down, a visitor is automatically and seamlessly forwarded to the mirror site, which is an exact replica of your original site.
This type of service generally costs more money but if your livelihood depends on your site being up and accessible at all times, it may be well worth the extra money.
Step 3: Keep Off-Server Customer Information
You would not believe how many Internet marketers do not keep hard copy information of their customer database on a local computer. How silly is that? If the server goes down and damage is done, all this valuable information could be lost.
Furthermore, you need to be able to reach important clients when your server goes down. You need to make it a critical task to continually back up your customer information including name, address, telephone number, and email address and order history.
This way, when your servers go down, you can contact and reassure customers that you are working diligently to resolve the situation and your customers will feel connected and valued.
Jason Tarasi publishes the “Marketer’s Protection Newsletter”. Subscribe now and DISCOVER the insider secrets you MUST know to protect yourself from fraud, lawsuits and other potential risks that could permanently harm your online business. http://www.marketersprotection.com
Setting Up a Merchant Account
The first way is the easiest and it really is a bit like cheating. Instead of setting up your own merchant account, you can go through a popular online payment service like PayPal, Ebid, or Moneybookers. These services accept credit card payments from your customer and provide a variety of other services. The downside is that your clients will need to have an account with the payment service that you choose, which can present problems for those who don’t feel comfortable with this sort of payment method.
In general, PayPal is the most widely accept payment service and they offer a range of merchant tools, including a full shopping cart that can be used on your site, with any product or price that you choose. Before deciding which service to go with, you need to do some research and make sure that your customers will be likely to use them. There are literally dozens of different online payment services, so you will have a wide range of options. Most of these services charge a percentage of the transaction and may have further fees that you should be aware of, so check this before deciding on one.
The second method of setting up a merchant account is to go through a merchant account banking service. These are also available online, or you can talk to your bank about setting one up that can be used online. The majority of ecommerce owners go with online services, since they are already optimized for website transactions and are easily accessible.
A real merchant account (not a PayPal or Moneybookers account) will cost you a fee to set it up. This can range anywhere from $50 to hundreds of dollars, depending on the service provider. These accounts will also charge a fee each time a credit card is processed, which is standard in the business world. However, the advantages of having a merchant account outweigh the costs in many cases.
With a valid merchant account, you will be able to accept credit cards right on your website, which is a big advantage to many ecommerce websites. Also, many service providers will charge lower processing fees than real world banks and you have 24 hour, instant access to your transaction information.
So, yes, you can begin your ecommerce venture without an online merchant account, but if you plan to do any big business, you will need to get one. Merchant accounts are essential to ecommerce and any other type of online business.
I’ve been in business and a business coach since 1985, my expertise is in marketing and sales, both off line and online. I’ve partnered with David Vallieres to bring you an online course called Think and Succeed Training. For more information go to our site: http://www.course-internet-marketing.com
A Tiny Change To Multiply Sales
There is a secret to making your website more accessible to anybody who tries to access it while at the same time increasing signups for newsletters, ezines, ecourses, opt-in, sales, or whatever else you’re trying to get in front of more people. When I first learned the technique I thought it was too technical, but it is actually extremely easy.
I’m talking about using the error pages that come up when somebody doesn’t enter the URL correctly, or for some other reason is taken to an error message. Perhaps you’ve already noticed how major sites have personalized error notification pages and wondered, “Wow, how do they do that?” A lot of websites that know how to do this correctly still don’t even know how to make money doing it.
Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty how-to segment to make this work wonders. What you need to do is create an “.htaccess” file and upload it to the server where your site is hosted. If you have no idea how to upload a file to your hosting service, most providers have how-to sections on that or you can download SmartFTP for free which has easy to follow video tutorials. Open the notepad on your computer since we’ll be creating a new simple text file that will make miracles happen.
All you need to do in this text file is add a few lines that will tell your server to redirect visitors to the page of your choice instead of the typical error message. Let’s just focus on three of the most common errors so you’ll get the hang of this. On the first line of the text file type “ErrorDocument 403 put-URL-here” and of course change the text that says “put-URL-here” with the complete URL of your choice. Then, instead of visitors getting the typical white text page that says Error403 they’ll see the website you inserted!
This gets pretty exciting, especially if your site gets lots of traffic. Before I implemented this tactic my site got about one thousand error messages in a single month, and I’m sure most of those visitors were lost to me forever. Next line in the text file should say “ErrorDocument 400 put-URL-here” and the line after that should say “ErrorDocument 404 put-URL-here”. Your file should now be properly prepared to redirect visitors to the page of your choice when a server error occurs.
Now we need to make your document functional. In Notepad you can go ahead and save it as htaccess.txt for now. Now log in to your server and upload the file to your site’s root directory (that’s the main one where all the main pages are). Don’t put it into the subdirectories.
Once you’re online with your server’s interface and you’ve uploaded the text file, use the server’s interface to rename the document, and instead of being “htaccess.txt” you should rename it “.htaccess” with no file name extension. Don’t forget to include the period at the beginning of the name of the file or else this won’t work for you. You’re all set!
To test that you’ve gotten the settings right, type your main domain name into your browser then backslash anything you want. For example, yoursite dot com slash blahblahblah and instead of getting the typical Error404 message you should see the URL you put into the .htaccess file you just uploaded. If this didn’t work for you, review the steps. If you still have trouble, contact your server’s support line and they should be able to guide you to making it work.
Many hosting providers have forms on their interface that allow you to do this very simply by filling in the blanks, but the system I’ve outlined here for you today will work universally. Enjoy the bigger profits!
Tyler Ellison is a successful entrepreneur who teaches automated marketing strategies at his site http://www.youcanworkthenet.com and encourages others to join the community at http://www.littleguyco-op.com .
Starting An E-Commerce Business
One of the biggest breakthroughs in the world of the Internet is the conception of the eCommerce business. What started originally as a small time operation where each Internet provider partnered with certain companies and billed purchases to the customers Internet bill has now exploded into a worldwide operation where people can buy everything from music to clothing to food to cars and even houses.
There is very little territory that has not been tapped but that does not mean that the market is saturated as it is with other markets because customers are fickle for the most part. Unless you offer something unique, the customer is going to continue to look around for a better price, different color or even different style.
The inception of the Internet has created a world of Internet addicts who may spend hours just trying to find a particular purse in a color that is exactly what they want. What does that mean for the would be entrepreneur? It opens a new opportunity for him to own his own business without having to concern himself with the expense of a brick and mortar store.
Instead of going into a store every day and being faced with irate customers, disgruntled employees and much more, you can sit and relax while people visit your website and purchase the products they want. There is no need for inventory but you may choose to have the more popular items available for immediate delivery.
Even better, you can partner with someone else and become a reseller and you do not even have to do the shipping and handling. The advent of eCommerce gives new entrepreneurs a choice in how they run their businesses and that of itself, means more opportunities for everyone. The advent of eCommerce also opened up more in the area of competition for online sellers.
Everyone knows that competition is good for business and it keeps competitors on their toes, always trying to out do the next retailer. That means each person in the business must perform to the ultimate edge if they expect to draw more sales than their competitors. Unlike the brick and mortar store, online shoppers are fickle and if they can not find what they want in one place at the price they want to pay, they will go to the next online store.
With so many online stores, customers do not feel the need to pledge loyalty to one retailer or reseller, so if you want repeat business, you need to offer service and prices that are unique to that of your competitors. Its not impossible to do but you have to be willing to do the work in order to make your eCommerce business better than that of others selling similar products.
Obinna Heche:
Delivering the best home based business ideas and opportunities so you can work at home successfully..
http://www.homeincomeportal.com/obhmy365/
What Are You Really Paying? Understanding Your Merchant Account Fees
Business owners who maintain a merchant account for processing credit and debit cards often find their biggest frustration is trying to understand their monthly merchant account statement (link to comparing rates) and determine exactly what their fees are each month. Part of the confusion is due to merchants often assuming the only fee that they need to worry about is their qualified discount rate.
What many merchants don’t realize is that in addition to the qualified discount rate for Visa and MasterCard transactions, the following fees are also assessed on a merchant account each month: 1) per transaction fee; 2) mid qualified discount rate; 3) non qualified discount rate; 4) monthly statement fee; and 5) ACH or Batch fee. Depending on the processing company you choose you may also be charged one or more of the following: 1) monthly minimum; 2) annual fee; 3) monthly fee; 4) merchant club fee (supplies); 5) early cancellation fee; 6) equipment fees; or 7) fees for customer service calls.
The best way to figure out what you’re actually paying each month is to divide the total amount of fees listed on your merchant statement by the total volume processed that month. For example, if there is a total of $80 in fees and the monthly volume processed is $2,000 then divide $80 by $2,000. You will get 0.04, or 4%. This means you paid about 4% of your total credit card sales to process credit card transactions. The total amount paid on the total volume processed is referred to as the effective rate.
Typically, merchants should expect to pay an effective rate of about 2% of their total credit card volume each month if they swipe a majority of their transactions and 2.5% if their transactions are mostly keyed-in. The effective rate includes ALL fees assessed on the merchant account each month, such as statement fee, per transaction fees and downgrades in addition to the qualified discount rate.
If a merchant signs a contract with a merchants services provider for a qualified discount rate of 1.69% this does not guarantee that this is the only amount the merchant will be charged each month. For example, a merchant who has a qualified discount rate of 1.69% but only sees 20% of their transactions processed at that rate will end up paying significantly more than a merchant with a qualified discount rate of 1.79% that sees over 80% of their transactions processed at the qualified 1.79% discount rate.
To find the best deal for your business it is important to look at all the fees that will be assessed on your merchant account. Don’t be afraid to ask processing companies questions and learn about your merchant account. After all, it is your money that you’re talking about! So remember, the goal is to look for companies that offer merchants free, no-pressure rate comparisons and statement breakdowns.
Premier Payment Systems offers expert level payment solutions for both web and retail. Check us out on the web at http://www.ppsbankcard.com
