Think Outside The Box

5 Benefits to Starting an Online Business

Technically, an online business is not a digital or virtual extension of an existing traditional business. An online business is a digital enterprise where the primary forte of the company is in the virtual world. However, for the purpose of inclusivity, we shall include the digital or online extensions of existing traditional businesses. Here are five benefits to starting an online business.

1. Reasonable Investment

Most online businesses cost a fraction of what a traditional or conventional business demands. Compare the cost of launching an online store or ecommerce site and an actual retail store. The difference will be a small fortune. It is true that starting an ecommerce site or global marketplace like Amazon or eBay will require much more money than starting a convenience store in a neighborhood but not every online store needs to be an Amazon or eBay.

2. Easy Startup

An online business can be launched in weeks, if not days. Once the business plan is in place and all the products or services are ready to be rolled out, it takes days to start an online business. For those who don’t need to rely on website designers or a multipurpose agency, the ball can be set rolling in less than a week.

3. High Returns on Investments

The investment is low to begin with. The returns are high anyway when you assess the ROI. However, given the scope of expansion and exponential growth that one can encounter, the returns on investments are exponentially higher than conventional or traditional businesses. A traditional business can only reach out to an immediate audience. Online businesses can transcend geographical boundaries, cultural and social barriers to emerge as a global phenomenon.

4. Automation

Online businesses can be automated, almost entirely. You should conduct the reviews, assess the performance and make changes as and when needed but you don’t need to personally or physically intervene at every stage. Everything from compliance to sales, customer service to upgrades can be automated. Digital entrepreneurs will have more time at their discretion which can be used to diversify, to expand the business, to venture into new endeavors and to indulge in a plethora of leisures.

5. A Myriad of Freedoms

Online business owners can work from anywhere, at any time, for as long as they want and there’s the elusive financial freedom. Online businesses are truly empowering. Online businesses also help entrepreneurs to find that quintessential balance between work and life.

5 Ways To Get Paid With Total Life Changes

Check Out These Tips From The DeadBeat Super Affiliate How to Hack Your Brain to Make Money Online

Advanced Affiliate Marketing Tips That Will Get You Results

If you are going to be involved in affiliate marketing, it just makes sense that you want to make money – and not just a little money but as much money as possible. You want to create a residual income stream. These great tips will help you make that happen. These aren’t the basic tips you hear all the time, like make sure you research your market, choose a sound affiliate program, etc. These are advanced tips that you need to do in addition to the basics. Are you ready?

#1 You need to be patient
The number one reason bloggers and website owners give up on affiliate marketing is because they don’t make any money in the early months. Getting the most from an affiliate program isn’t easy, but one thing you do have to have is patience, because seldom do you make money in the early days. Affiliate marketing is not a get rich scheme. It takes work and patience to get established. Keep that in mind.

#2 You need to spend money to make money
Plain and simple – you need to spend money to make money. If you really want to generate a steady residual income flow you’ll need to spend some money. Buy the products you are planning to sell. Learn about them. Find what you like and what you don’t like. Make recommendations to your potential customers based on your experiences. If you don’t know the product(s) it’s going to be hard to make money from it. You don’t have to spend a lot of money, but you do need to spend enough to know your products.

#3 Monetize your blog early
If you are blogging and you are going to add an affiliate product you don’t have to wait a certain period of time before you monetize your blog. This is one of the most common mistakes made. You can start to sell products/services right from the beginning if you like. It’s more important that you know your product and are passionate about it than waiting a specific time to start to sell it.

#4 Know who your readers are
You need to know who your readers are so that you can market to them. You need to know what they like, where they live, what kind of money they make, what products they tend to buy, etc. When you know your reader you choose the right product to sell and you market it to them correctly.

#5 Always be honest
Honesty really is the best policy in everything you do. State both what you like and what you don’t like about the product. Outline the pros and cons. No product is perfect so don’t pretend it is. There is almost always something you’d like to see different so tell your audience.

These five advanced marketing tips along with basic advise will help you to create an affiliate marketing program that sells.

How to be Effective With Your Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing offers you the opportunity to create a steady income flow. However, the key is to know what will make your affiliate marketing effective and therefore successful. Let’s look at what you can do to make that happen.
#1 First Impressions Really do Count
You’ve heard it all your life, first impressions people make about you are important. While the same applies to the product you are marketing. Your visitors experience when they make it to your website will set the tone for whether they decide to stay on your site, come back again in the future, or buy the product you are offering for sale. Make sure your landing page is one that makes visitors feel at home and want to buy what you have to offer.

#2 Promote Only the Products That You Have Used
You should know about the products you are planning to sell and you should want to buy them yourself. If the product isn’t good enough for you, then why would you try to sell it to your visitors.

#3 Do a Good Job of Promoting the Product
If you place an affiliate graphic ad, like a banner ad, on your page without a description or any information about the product, don’t expect to sell the product. You need to know about the product and tell your visitors about it. When you share your knowledge with your visitors they will be intrigued with what you have to offer and then they are much more likely to click an ad and follow through.

#4 Your Affiliate Links Come Second
When it comes to your website, your content should come first and your affiliate link should come second. The content on your site should drive your affiliate links, however, don’t write content just for the sake of the affiliate link because that’s going to come across. Make sure the content is of value.

#5 Promote no More Than 2 Related Products
There are all kinds of products available to sell. Affiliate marketing is ‘huge.’ You might be tempted to sell all kinds of products. If you want to be successful, you don’t want to do that. Instead, pick one or two products that are related to each other. By doing so, you’ll increase your success.
Why is that? Well because if you are promoting many products it is hard for you to be believable about all of them and so your visitors will remain skeptical. If day one you recommend Company A, and then in a few days you recommend Company B, then in a week you recommend Company C, how can the visitor ever build trust?

These 5 tips should be used by every affiliate marketers to enjoy success.

7 of the Best Tips to Help You Enjoy Affiliate Success

Are you looking for the best tips to help you enjoy affiliate success? Then read on.

#1 The Best Tip Ever
This is by far the most important tip you will ever be given, and that is to always choose a product that has quality. You are going to be promoting the product on your site so you are putting your credibility on the line. Make sure it’s worth it! If you sell something that’s inferior you are going to ruin your hard earned reputation.

#2 Selling Your Product
When you work as an affiliate you can’t assume that the visitors to your site know about your affiliate product or the benefits of it. You need to tell them in a clear concise manner. Readers know only what you share about the product.

#3 Choose Where You Sell the Affiliate
If you are going to place affiliate links on other sites you need to choose wisely to ensure that their site traffic will actually see the ads.

#4 Be Smart About Where You Place Your Ads
It’s important to place your affiliate links and graphic ads in the right place so that your visitors will actually see them.

#5 Does it Meet Your Requirements?
Have a look at the affiliate website to learn about the product. Then decide if it catches your attention, looks professional and useful and is sold on a site that is easy to navigate. Does the site show you its address and phone number? Does it offer any type of warranty? This will help you decide if you would buy this product. If you would it’s a good affiliate. If it doesn’t meet your requirements and you wouldn’t buy it, move on and find another product.

#6 Take Advantage of Article Marketing
Be sure to submit top-notch articles to the article directories on a weekly basis. Do not let this slide because it helps to build a routine for followers. If you can’t take care of this hire a virtual writer.

#7 Let’s be Honest
When you are selling an affiliate’s product you need to be honest about your intent. Let your site visitors know that you are involved in affiliate marketing. This will help you to build a loyal following. When your visitors click your referral link they will know where it’s going and what your role is, which means it’s more likely a sale will occur.

In today's society no one should be living on one income stream.

4 Practical Affiliate Marketing Tips

Affiliate marketing is a great way to add an income stream to your bottom line. However, it takes more than just choosing an affiliate and selling. Not every person who chooses to become an affiliate program does well, so the more you learn the more likely you are to be successful. These 4 practical affiliate marketing tips are a great place to start.

#1 Email Marketing
You may not yet be aware of this but your key to income streaming and making good money is in your list. Then again, you may already know this. Your email marketing list should always be growing. The best way to do this is, is to have an opt in form on your site or blog. Bait people to sign up – offer them a free e-book, a webinar, a monthly newsletter, etc. Make them want to give you their e-mail addresses. As you grow your list you will have more potential customers at your finger tips and these customers are already targeted. Don’t however make the mistake of overwhelming your subscribers with products that you are selling. You need to minimize this and build trust, occasionally throwing out there a product they can buy.

#2 Build a Tools Page
This is special page that you build where you list all of the tools you use. In other words, all the products or services you sell. This makes it easy for your customers and visitors to quickly see at a glance what you have available but without it appearing to be a shopping page. You’ll list the item with a link and then a brief review about what it does.

#3 Add a bonus
If you really want to draw your potential customers in, offer them your affiliate item and then offer them something special from you after they complete the purchase. It might be a discount, a free e-book, money off their next purchase, etc. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Many affiliate products have a nice commission payout so that gives you plenty of wiggle room to come up with something that will please your customer and work for you.

#4 Take advantage of banners
Make use of banners on your website or blog. Place them in the footer, above the header, in the sidebar, or in your content. Affiliate products almost always have at least a couple of banner ads you can choose from to promote the product. Banners get the highest click through rate of all ads, so keep this in mind.

There you have it – 4 practical affiliate marketing tips you can really benefit from.

Productivity Tips Affiliate Marketing Beginners Should Know

Are you thinking about trying your hand at affiliate marketing? Perhaps you’ll still be working full time while trying your hand at internet marketing? Whether you are new to affiliate marketing or a full time marketer your time is valuable and you will want to get the most out of your time. Let’s look at 3 productivity tips affiliate marketing beginners should know about.

#1 Create Micro Goals on a Daily Basis It’s pretty easy to become overwhelmed with big tasks and as a result you could find yourself floundering not achieving any of the tasks at hand. The best way to make sure this does not happen is to create micro goals on a daily basis. This will make achieving your tasks, especially the big tasks more easy to accomplish. Take advantage of online task lists or simply create a list on paper. Micro goals make it easy to systematically accomplish your tasks.

#2 Use Time Management Software One of the programs that you might want to try is ClockingIt as it’s free and has a lot to offer. There are others, some free and some paid for. Using time management software you can track all your tasks from start to finish. You will be able to track in detail the exact time you use. It will also help you determine any area that might be creating a bottleneck. You might also want to take advantage of a countdown timer to help you accomplish more work in less time. Set your timer for 1 hour and refuse to be interrupted by anything short of the house being on fire. It will help you to make the most use of your time.

#3 Make Use of a Notebook for Your Creative Ideas It is easy to become distracted in the middle of a task, especially if you have many tasks on the go. It’s easy to find yourself spending time away from what you need to be doing and so it can interfere with your productivity. But you also don’t want your ideas to get lost in the mix. One of the things you can do is create a permanent task in your time management software. Another thing you can do is create what is called a tickler file. This idea was born because of author Dave Allen in his book Getting Things Done. It’s basically a way to keep track of ideas that come to you. The same thing can be accomplished with pen and paper.

These three productivity tips can go a long way to help you make the most out of your time.

Tips to Become a Successful Affiliate Marketer

Tips to Become a Successful Affiliate Marketer

There are many ways to be successful as an affiliate marketer, but one is to show your visitors how to use a product and how it will benefit them. There’s nothing quite as powerful as having you put your stamp of approval on the product and then show how to use it.

There are many ways that you can show the visitors how to use the product you are marketing. You can create videos. YouTube is a great place to host ‘how to videos.’ Show your site visitors how to use your product. Be truthful and honest, but create a video that’s interesting. Make your videos less than 4 minutes.

You can create e-books, reports and article that talk about the affiliate product and how to use it. You can also talk about the pros and cons of the product. It’s important to be honest. Tell your visitors what you really think. Of course, to do this you have to try the product yourself.

Take advantage of blogs and forums. Post about the product, how you used it, what you found with its use, etc. Share information with your site visitors and in other places off your site. Remember the larger your reach the higher your sales will be. You can also take advantage of podcasts, which are an excellent way to reach existing and potentially new customers.

Make sure you take the time to plant the seed and then nurture it. Start by telling your visitors and other potential customers what it is you have to offer, follow through by telling them how it works and the benefits of it, along with the pros and cons. Then make sure you nurture it by adding new content on a regular basis and that you continue to promote the niche products in your niche market.

Before you choose an affiliate product, take the time to do your homework and find the product that suits you best. Which product(s) has a good reputation, is known for its quality and has a good commission structure. Don’t be afraid of high end items, because when you market them properly you can be very successful. Too often we assume that higher priced items will be too difficult to sell. That’s simply not the case. As long as your niche fits the product and you have a strong marketing strategy you can enjoy the rewards.

Affiliate marketing offers a great way to generate an income stream and a comfortable income.

Top 3 Free and Easy Affiliate Programs to Join for Beginners

I found this article to be helpful with informing you about the top three affiliate programs if you are a newbie to the industry. The Amazon associates program is one of the best affiliate programs to be apart of. Amazon make $1.4 million dollars per second! To get started click here.

Let's assume you have your website up and running. You have built a website or blog, and now it is time to monetize it. There are so many choices out there online, so where is the best place to start? First of all, from my own experience as a beginning affiliate a few years back, I didn't have a plan of action. I began my affiliate programs blindly because it was simply too much to process in the beginning, with all of the choices. I didn't do much research at first, and that made it tough to know exactly where to go for some order in the information overload.
Through my failures and successes, I have learned a lesson of strategy that has finally grown with me. If I had begun my affiliate start up with first a solid plan of action, followed by research on all of the affiliate networks in order to minimize my choices to only the top plan of action and best three affiliate networks to promote while I learned the ropes, I would have succeeded much sooner.

Top 3 Affiliate Networks for beginners

1. Google AdSense
· This is actually an Ad Site, but because it is an extremely popular and easy way to monetize your website, I use it in the same or similar way as I would use to promote products from the actual affiliate network sites.
· Google AdSense offers high rewards along with several options for displaying monetized content.
· You can run various tests and or campaigns for the right types of ads to use on your website. They can be automatic or responsive ad units that change according to those who are viewing the pages on your site, or the content of your site.
· Payouts are monthly. Minimum payout amount available is $100.00. Don't worry; it adds up quickly when you begin active affiliate marketing.

2. ClickBank
· My number 1 go to market place where there are tens of thousands of vendors offering hundreds of thousands of affiliates commissions of anywhere between 50 to 75% for every sale.
· ClickBank is also a lot like a payment processor.
· Fast, weekly payouts and great customer support.
· ClickBank is awesome for beginners with how easy it is to use.

3. Amazon Associates
· This affiliate program is hands down the easiest to use with about 1.5 million sellers, it is among the largest affiliate marketing programs online.
· Amazon unfortunately offers smaller commissions and longer payout periods at first, which means you have to promote products at a higher volume, but the success and volume of sellers as well as how easy it is to incorporate into any niche makes it worthy of this top 3 list.
Now you have the best 3 affiliate markets for beginners in the affiliate marketing arena. It's time to know your products and get a step by step plan of action built. It is difficult to form a detailed plan of action when you are new to marketing, but along with knowing the affiliate networks you will utilize first, a detailed plan is a must for any affiliates success.

If you are new to affiliate marketing, or even if you have been doing it aimlessly for a while, earning little or nothing, I have seen many alternative plans, but the one that's done me fair justice most recently is one in particular. Stop by and see 10 Tips for Mastering Super Affiliate Marketing [http://www.happyhippychic.com/10-tips-mastering-super-affiliate-marketing/] plan of action as well as my review of this useful step by step guide.
Feel Free to look around on my blog! [http://www.happyhippychic.com/]

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Vicki_Sinclair/2317520


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9534148

Amazon Affiliate Signup

5 Affiliate Marketing Tips Every Beginner Should Know

As a beginner affiliate marketer you may feel like you are a little out of your league, but there’s good news – being an affiliate marketer is a skill you can quickly develop and you too can build an income stream that you can enjoy.

#1 Broaden the Horizons

Make sure you take the time to broaden your horizons. Some don’t want to promote higher ticket affiliate products because they think they will be too difficult to sell. However, reconsider this, because it really is about your sales skills and how good a job you can do telling the world about the products. Through content you can let your visitors would feel like having this product. You can appeal to their senses and tempt them with good content. 

#2 Promote When You are Comfortable – Promoting your affiliate product is work but it is worth it because you can really increase your revenue significantly. You can promote through social media, forums, other websites, directories, by offering contents, and the list goes on. Learn about your product and then once you are comfortable with it, promote the heck out of it. 

#3 Remember You Are in it For the Long Term – You should be looking at your affiliate marketing as a long term project. If you have not yet built your blog or website, now is the time to do that. If you already have your site that’s great. It is important to create good content consistently and then you need to work at generating traffic. Then it’s time to place ads. This will carry on over time. Ads may change, products might also change over time, but they will stay within your niche. 

#4 Content is Always King – You might already know this, but it is important to mention it just in case. You need to make sure your site has solid content that’s fresh and interesting to your visitors. It should also be search engine optimized. Visitors are far more likely to return if your site is constantly being updated with interesting and relevant content. 

#5 Market Yourself – Learning how to market yourself is important. An affiliate is simply a sales channel where you will sell your ads to your visitors. If you first market yourself and build trust you will have a much better chance of enjoying success with your affiliate program. 

You are off to a good start with these 5 affiliate marketing tips. You too can enjoy an income stream from affiliate marketing.

10 Habits of Successful People

Nearly all successful people have similar habits. If you are not keen enough, you may never notice these habits. So, do you dream to become successful one day? Well here is how…

10 Habits of Successful People

1. Decisive
The decisions that you make, whether small or big, will affect your success in life. It's important to make sure that these decisions complement your values. If you are unable to make the right decisions, then you will find it very difficult to live a successful life.

2. Responsible
Being responsible means taking control of the events happening in your life. It’s the difference between success and failure. Your actions will influence your success, so be more responsible.

3. Focused
Focusing on the goals that you set will help you become successful within no time. Without focus, you will be unable to do important things that will set your life on a new path to success. All I can tell you is focus.

4. Wake Up Early
Most who are successful in life, cultivate a habit of waking up early. If you have difficulty with waking up early, you should try different techniques like finding an alarm clock, avoiding light or screen an hour before retiring to bed etc.

5. Avoid Distractions
There are a number of distractions in your life that can lead to your failure in life. For instance, drugs, bad company, social media and much more. To avoid distractions, make sure that you work on completing the items on your to-do list before your work day ends.

6. Patient
Patience pays. To become successful you have to practice patience. If you do your things hurriedly, chances are that you won't do them the right way and you will become a failure. Take your time to attract success.

7. Listen More and Speak Less
Those who are successful use most of their time listening instead of speaking. By listening more and speaking less you have time to digest what you are listening to make sound decisions.

8. Respectful
In most disciplines, respect is the key to success. Without respect, you won't be able to taste success no matter how hard you try.

9. Always Make The First Move
Be bold in life and always make the first move and avoid being after the crowd. Always be ahead of the pack if you want to taste success.

10. Manage Time Well
Time is money. So, if you don’t manage your time well, don’t expect success to come on a silver platter.

Wrap Up:
To sum it up, becoming successful is without a doubt one of the most coveted achievements today. However, as you can clearly see, it requires a fair share of effort although it's still possible. If you keenly stick to the 10 habits outlined in this post,you can make your dream of becoming successful a reality.