Home Business Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Advertising’

In a couple of weeks the children will be back in school and a few weeks after that mothers will start thinking more about what they want to do with their “free” time.  So some start to look on the Internet in hopes of finding that perfect part-time job, that can be done while the children are at school or sleeping.

The only problem with this concept that I have come across is that a lot of mothers with businesses find that they have no idea whether or not their business is making any money.

Most “newbies”  jump in with both feet and have no idea what it is they are suppose to do to make money.  Or they simply do not have any cash flowing through to make money.  At the end of the 6 months or even a year, they sometimes realize they have spent more than they have made.  Then usually I hear the cries of “It is a scam!”  I am here to tell you not everything on the Internet is a scam; they are quite a few legitimate work at home jobs or businesses.

If you don’t know alot about finances, and the vast majority of people don’t, then how can you determine that your business is making money?  If you don’t’ keep track of advertising and sales-then how do you know how to improve?  And how do you plan on staying business?  Here are some tips to help you answer these questions:

1.The Basics:  You need to have more money coming in than going out.  If you have ever done a budget for your household living expenses the same concept applies to a business.  It is a simple, straight forward concept; however there are numerous “newbies” who think they can spend money they don’t have and still make a profit each month.

2. Business Plan:  Do you need one and why?  Yes!  Having some sort of   plan written down will help with determine how much money you can safely invest in your business.  It can help you decide where the best possible place is to put that money.  Plus, if you have it right in front of you every time you turn on the computer, you will have a better idea what it is you are doing.

3, Keeping Track:  If you don’t balance your checking account regularly you will be overdrawn in no time.  The same with your business accounts check them regularly to make sure more money is coming in than going out.  That you are staying within your budget.  Keep track of your sales and after a time if they are not improving ask yourself why.  What can I do different to increase sales and still stay within my budget.  Is your business plan still working and how can you improve it.

During this time you should have a pretty good idea how much you are spending on advertising, is there some way you can improve your results with the same advertising.  Do you need to rework your ads to make them more noticeable?

If you have your own website are you getting the necessary traffic to your website to make a profit.  In most cases, I have found that if I get somewhere between 300-400 clicks a day on my website, I am guaranteed a profit.  This is not written in stone, it can vary.  But this is my goal per day.

A really good program to use to track your income and expenses is Excel.  You probably already have it on your computer.  You can set this program up to keep track of your activity, and as you bring in more income you can then purchase an accounting program such as Quicken to track all income/expenses.

4. Know Your Profit Margin: What is a profit margin?  If your costs are set at a certain amount, your advertising at a set amount, then how much do you need to make a profit.  Let say you have a product that cost you $49.99 to purchase, you need to advertise that product.  How much and how many sales are needed for you to start to make a profit on that one purchase?  If you were to sale that same product for $59.99, you would make $10.00 profit on each product and it would take 5 sales for you to make your money back, without spending any money on advertising.  If you spend money on advertising, then that too has to be factored in before you can determine your gross profit.

Once you know all this then you are at your “break-even point”.  This is when you have covered all your cost.  If you cannot cover your cost then you are going to lose money and your business will fail.

Keeping track of these few things could make the difference between making money and losing money.

Let me give you an example:  Doggie Heaven (fictitious) makes $6000 in sales per month (sounds good doesn’t it?) Doggie Heaven’s owner makes a guess that their costs are around $5,000 per month, this is before he checks his actual figures. So they assume that they will make $1000 per month. However, once all there costs are tallied, they soon realize that the cost of running their Doggie Heaven business is actually $6000 and they have made no money at all.  So they have worked for nothing.

In having a business plan in front of them with approximate costs they could have adjusted expenditures and/or increased their sales.  The point is that if you don’t know how you are doing, how can you improve it and how will you stay in business?

Don’t be afraid to start a business, just be informed.  All of the information is at your fingertips you only need to ask questions, search for answers, and have a business plan, that can be adjusted, in front of you.

I like blogging.  I like the word…the word came into existence around 1999 and actually is another name for Weblog, which we all know started out as a a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer.

However, blogging is such a cool word.  Much better than saying “I Weblog”.  People would look at you and wonder if you were going off the deep end.

So why do I like blogging.  Because of this, what I am doing right now.  I am putting all my thoughts and ideas down to share with others.  Providing those who are interested want to share it with me.  No one has to read it or agree with anything I write.  It is nice if they like what I write, but not necessary to my overall satisfaction.

I have been article writing for my home business for some time.  I like my home business, I enjoy it, I find great satisfaction from working at home.  But I never really felt comfortable writing an article.  I think it stems from my childhood and the problems I was told I had with the English language.  The offhanded remarks of some pretty insensitive teachers gave me a lifelong fear of writing my thoughts for anyone else to read.  I never even kept a diary for fear someone else would read it and make fun of it.

So it was with great anxiety that I even started writing for my home business.  Fear kept me from writing as I wanted to write.  Which tends to be a bit of ramblings.  I tended to paraphrase someone elses thoughts, which I guess is all right when you are starting, but you have to get over that fear and start your own thoughts or you will become stagnant.  You know like a body of water that is standing still.

This is why I like blogging.  Because who cares if you ramble, or if your opinion is different.  Who really cares if your punctuation, or grammer is not the best.  As long as you get the point across in a manner which is easy to read and understand, you have done the job. I also find if I use my own thoughts and ideas I tend to get more readers.  Because what I write is all me.

Also when I am using my random thoughts and putting them down in some structure, I become more organized.  How does that happen?  I haven’t a clue.  I just know that when I write like I want to write, and put things down as I want to and not someone else’s thoughts, I have more ideas, more things to write about, and it is a whole lot less stress.  Which at my age…stress is not needed.

So even though I feel blogging is an interesting word in itself, it is even more interesting to blog your thoughts and ideas to the world. You can use blogging to promote your business, your interests, or just about anything you want.  Do you want to brag about your family?  Blog it!  How about the success of your home based business?  Blog it!  Pick a topic, create a blog either using Blogspot.com (Free) or use WordPress.com (also free), and you are off on an adventure.

Using the blog as a means of advertising a business is a great way not only to make sales, but meet people who share your common goals.

Isn’t it time you become part of the Blogging World?

Now that you have decided you want to work at home, you are not sure how to get started.  Am I right? First of all you are not alone.  So take a deep breath and live your dream.

If you plan on your home business being a success, and I am sure you do, then you need to learn to market it effectively.  Meaning figure out if you want to market it only online, offline, use only free methods, use paid advertising or both.  How do you market your business?

In this article I will concentrate on only free methods, because frankly that is how I started.

If you don’t already have a website, it is best to have one of your own to market.  Don’t panic, if I did it, you can do it.  A domain name can be purchased online anywhere from $1.99 (Go Daddy) to $7.95 and up.  Pick a name that is relevant to your business.  For instance if you are selling affiliate work at home programs like I do, then you do not want a name like HorseRUs.  That is fine if you are selling saddles and bridles, but not home business opportunities.  After you settle on a domain name, you need to find a hosting service for your new website.  This too can be done as cheaply as $4.95 a month (Ipower) and I have seen it as high as a yearly cost of over $500.  Stick with the cheaper plans, believe me, all you need is someone to host your site on the web, you will be doing all the promotions, changes to your website, and anything else that needs attention.

With that done, the next step will be designing your website.  There are many free website building editors on the Internet, that all you have to do is download them to your computers hard drive.  The one I use and like is NVU.  It is simple, you don’t have to know html, and their support is great for someone who has never built a website.

All the while you are building your website, use some of the methods outlined in this article to advertise some of your affiliate programs.

Now that I have scared you to death at the thought of building a website, I will let you off the hook, and tell you that if you don’t have the money for a hosting account.  You can create a blog through Blogspot.com, and do just about anything with it.  It is not as effective as your own domain name or website, but it can get you started.  If you are reading this article on my work at home blog…I use WordPress.org, which requires you to have your own hosting and domain name.  I find it easier to make changes and have an original design.  I use Blogspot for another blog, if you would like to see the difference:  Senior But Not Senile

FREE ADVERTISING

This is one that I am very familiar with and have used extensively.  As a matter of fact I wrote an e-book on how to use free advertising.  The link will be at the bottom of the article if you wish to download it.

Do a search on the Internet for free advertising and you will find more sites than you could use in a year.  These sites generally have both free and paid advertising.  The costs of the paid are generally extremely low.  Try and stay on the sites on the first page of your search, as these sites will be the first to pop up when someone puts a query into the search engines.

When writing your copy for your ad, most affiliate programs have written it for you.  You can generally change the wording to suit your needs.  However, I have found that by using their headlines, my ads receive more attention.

Post as many ads as are allowed on the site without posting duplicates.  Most free ad sites frown on duplicate ads and can get you banned from the site real quick.

FORUMS

I spend a lot of time on forums and not just for advertising.  You can learn so much from the other people on these home business forums and most people are happy to help someone get started.  They are a friendly group of people, generally speaking.  Again do not spam, do not answer questions that you are unsure of the answers.  If you don’t understand something…ask!

The way the advertising works for the forums is in your signature.  When you sign up you will be asked for your websites url or address.  On most forums you can put your affiliate links, but once you have your website up and running, go back in and put your websites address in the signature also.  Two or three addresses are more than enough.  If you put more you could get banned from the forum, and that is not a good way to start your business.

ARTICLE WRITING
This is one sure fire method of getting customers.  When I started it scared me to death.  I knew nothing about writing an article, some say I still don’t, but I learned to do it and as I went along I became more confident.

Your first articles could be reviews of different affiliate programs that your sponsor.  If you think you do not know enough about the programs, then look up reviews on the Internet for that particular program.  Read several of them, and you will have a pretty good idea what the program is all about.

Once you have written a few article start publishing them in different online magazines (Ezines).  Again look up “Ezines” on the web and you will find a listing of the most popular sites.  Ezines.com is the largest and most popular.  It is a free signup.  Be sure to put a brief biography of yourself in the signature portion of the sign-up.  If you are not sure what to put..read a few of the others and come up with something that will fit you.  I have changed mine about 10 times now.  Eventually I will get it right.  Only submit 1-2 articles a day with any Ezine.  It will take up to a week to get your article published, but it is a great feeling when you get that first one recognized.  I remember when I went to “Platinum” at Ezine.com, I was thrilled, they even sent me a ceramic mug in the mail as a thank you.  I drink my tea from it every morning.

SOCIAL NETWORKING

This one of the newer free advertising methods, and one that I am still becoming familiar using.  Facebook, MySpace, and a few others are useful in making contacts.  And once I fully understand how to use them effectively I will write another article.

Turning a profit using only free methods will take time and a lot of work, so prepare yourself if this is the only method you plan to use.  In my next article I will explore some of the paid methods of advertising and how to use them along with free advertising to really give your business a boost.

So I hope this gives you some insight into free advertising on the internet…if you want to download my book…it is free (just kidding about the price).  Remember it was written when I was still a novice, so don’t be too critical.

It takes money to make money. How many times have you heard that saying as you have put your website together? Although having money can’t hurt, with the versatility Internet offers there are numerous ways you could find that could help you optimize the potential of your site or business in generating traffic.

While there are ways to fast start your traffic surge, many sites don’t have the wherewithal that others have to produce more traffic for your site. Don’t get discouraged, you don’t have to spend one red cent; all you need is
the proper attitude and a lot of enthusiasm. You also must have the willpower and determination to do hard work and research to produce more traffic for your site.

Speaking from experience it is a wonderful feeling to have more traffic for your site without spending a single cent. The Internet is full of article sites that offer tips and procedures in how to produce traffic using only free methods. Because it is possible, you don’t need to spend a single cent, it will take longer for you to get established. You get better chances by paying for your advertisements, but if you use some of the free methods I will tell you about at least you have a chance of success.

I have said it before and I will say it again: take advantage of online forums and online communities. The thing to remember about forums and online communities is that you have target group that fits the your demographic.
You can discuss with others the nuances of online marketing while at the same time recruiting new members to your program. Remember on most forums and online communities you are not allowed to post ads. Only take
part in discussions or ask questions. Always remember to put your name and website address into the signature. This way no matter what you are talking about, you web address is there for everyone to see.

This type of advertising is not only free but a great way for you to build a reputation for your company. This is your time to show others who you are and knock them out with your range of knowledge about the subject, and
with this you build a good reputation and trust with the others on the forums and communities.

You can also make use of newsletters. This is one area that is largely overlooked by the new Internet marketer. Provide people with a directory of your products through a series of interesting articles. If you make it really
interesting and entertaining, more people will sign up for your newsletter and recommend it to other people. The more people who signs up for your newsletter, the more people there will be that will go to your site
increasing your traffic.

The more links and people coming to your site, the higher your ranking in the search engines. One way to achieve this is through exchanging links. This can be done through free online link exchanges or by asking others in the
forums if they would like to exchange links. All you have to do is reach an agreement with another webmaster. With exchanging links, the efforts both sites do will benefit both sites. Every traffic that goes to the site could
potentially click on the link of your site and visit your site as well. This works well especially when both sites feature the same niche.

Writing articles is probably on of the hardest for most people to do, but it is an excellent way of free advertising for your site. Articles that provide good assistance and knowledge to other people will provide the necessary
traffic your website needs. Many sites offer free submission and posting of your articles. When people find interest in your articles they have a good chance of following the track by finding out where the article originated.
Include a link or a brief description of your company with the article and there’s a great probability that they will go to your site.

Write good content for your site. Many search engines track down the keywords and keyword phrases your site uses and how they are used. It is not a requirement that content should be done by a professional content writer. You could do your own but you have to make content for your site that is entertaining as well as informational. It should provide certain requirements as well as great quality. Generally, Internet users use search engines to find what they are looking for. Search engines in return use keyword searching in aiding their search results. With the right keywords, you could get high rankings in search engine results without the costs.

All of these methods and more will drive more traffic to your site for free. All it takes is a bit of effort and hard work. Learn all you can about the methods depicted here and you will soon have a site with a steady traffic flow without
the usual costs that come with it.