I love helping small businesses get their presence known on the internet. I want to create a website that you can update without my help, but if you want me to help you every month that can be arranged. Creating your space is more about being the authentic you. And this is done by you creating the content on your site. Or having me write articles to get you started.

Know someone that could use my skills? Please forward my information to them. I am accepting new clients. I will be adding more examples of my work over the next few weeks.

The post Kicking Off The Freelancing Business appeared first on My Blog.

Something you don’t hear very often. Our sister site, HorseMatch.net, published the first book of hopefully many.  We have been looking at a variety of ways to make money to support the horses. For just $5.99 you get a great book about how to choose your next horse. AND you help feed the horses at Sierra Ranch, LLC.  Just click the link below or the Kindle button on the sidebar.

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1. Business Cards

Business cards are often one of the most underutilized tools in one’s marketing. Make sure you use the front and back of your business card to gain full benefit. Depending on your business you can put some valuable information on the back such as a sports schedule, emergency numbers, or  dates people want to remember.

Keep cards in your wallet, your automobile, on your desk, and at home. Be sure to carry them with you wherever you go and be willing to hand them out as an opportunity presents itself.

Creatively distribute your card. I send cards in packages I mail for the business. Hand them to clerks in stores who may know other people who could use your product or service.

2. Send a picture

Keep your name fresh in a customer’s mind is to send them a picture of when they purchased a product or service from you.

Anytime a customer makes a significant purchase, have a picture taken with the shop owner. You can post itto your social media pages.  The customer then can share it with their friends.

3. Associations

Join an association and learn to network market with your colleuges in the group.

A opportunity within many organizations is the chance to network. Additionally, to make presentations. Along with presentations come publications.  Often, when you do a presentation, you will get a mention in the association newsletter, their Ezine and on their website.

4. Committee Involvement

Give back to the associations you join by being on a committee.  It’s a great way to give back and builds visibility for your business. Joining a committee where you have little experience or knowledge will give you an opportunity to stretch yourself, And will allow you to meet and network with new people.

5. Contests and Drawings

Contests are a favorite to build your database of leads quickly. Every entry into the contest is a lead that has visited your business.  The key is to follow up on all the leads and to keep them coming into your business. Think outside the box and create a contest that is unsual. This will generate more free publicity for you.

6. Cross-promoting

Fins another company that has products or services that compliment yours and promote each other. Cross-promoting is only limited by your imagination. By joining with another business you will cut the costs of promoting and both companies will get lots of new business.

7. Bonuses

Along the same lines as cross-promoting, offer special offers from businesses related to yours. This allows both companies to be represented to the customer and lets the customer get something extra. This increases the value of their purchase and keeps them returning.

Hope you enjoy these great tips and return tomorrow for another of the Post-a-Day posts.

The post 7 No Cost Tips to Market Your Business appeared first on My Blog.

If you area small business then you have your niche figured out.  If you are wanting to start something on the web or grow what you are currently doing then keep reading and find our how to grow in your niche.

The work begins way before you start writing on your site, as you need to find the perfect niche – the subject of your website. Niche research is about finding profitable subjects that are broad enough to write enough content about, yet narrow enough for you to become an authority on the topic.

A great way to establish the popularity of a niche market is to use the Google AdWords keyword tool. Simply type in the name of the niche and you will see the number of searches performed each month, along with lots of related keywords.

If you sign in to the tool, you will also see the average price you would expect to pay to advertise on the front page of Google for each term. This should give you a feel for how much money there is to be made in the niche you have chosen to research.

There are a number of ways to find out how much competition you will face if you launch a site in a particular niche market. For a very quick and broad estimation, simply search for the niche name in speech marks in Google.

The higher the number of results returned, the more competition is out there. Of course, this doesn’t give you much insight into the quality of the competition, just the quantity.

To get a more reliable indication of how tough a keyword will be to rank for in search results, there are free tools to download, popular ones include Market Samurai and Traffic Travis. These will analyze things like how many inbound links are pointing to sites already ranking for the niche terms.

This gives a far more accurate picture of competition, but can take a while to fully research.

By doing your niche research properly, you will save time and effort. Focusing on the wrong markets will usually result in poor results, namely profit. When you find a niche market with plenty of search volume, good advertiser spend and relatively low competition, you have truly found your niche.

The post How To Research A Niche Market appeared first on My Blog.

It is also detailed process, which is the reason many site owners hire a marketing specialist to help them plan.  If you want some help with this check out our rates here.

To start, you must think about the major goal of the marketing campaign. Do you want to increase customer loyalty, boost brand awareness or sell products?

A correctly executed marketing strategy can take an e-commerce business to new levels if all steps are geared toward reaching that final goal.

Your campaign will be limited by your marketing budget. Many website owners start with a small amount of money, gradually increasing the budget to the highest, yet still comfortable level.

An marketing budget can be unlimited, and you may never reach your entire customer base. Stick with what you can afford, and work within your budget’s confines.

Learn about the direct competitors in your niche by searching for your website’s keywords. You will realize that some businesses are more competitive than others. And potential customers who are searching for services or products offered by your company will usually choose highly ranked websites.

Therefore, any site listed above your site is a competitor. Thoroughly research their services and products, and learn their strengths and weaknesses.

Make any necessary improvements to your website. Remember, a site is similar to a storefront. The more enticing the website’s design, the more traffic and sales the business will garner. Your services and products should not be carbon copies of your competitors, even if you must increase the quality of your items or include extras in your service packages.

Finally, identify the customer base you want to target, and advertise in places where they frequent. There are even some sites, particularly social networks, that will place business advertisements in front of a certain audiences to which the ads are targeted.

The post Creating a Tailored Marketing Plan appeared first on My Blog.

Here are the keys elements on how to write a sales page that sells!

The POPPING Headline

The headline is always the most important part of each sales page. You need to make sure that you create something that’s interesting, and a headline that will grab your readers attention.

Add words like “Find out how you can… (Fill in the Blank). Whether it’s a make money product or an ebook on singing, you need to make sure that your headline grabs their attention to keep reading.

Let them know about the benefits

When you let your readers know about what it is that you are offering them, they will know what to expect from the product.

The best part is that if they want what it is you’re going to give them, then you can be sure they will buy the product.

The special limited offer

The limited offer is what helps people think that they need to buy the product right away. When you tell them that they need it and that they only have a few days left, you pressure them into buying the product sooner, causing you to make more money. You can make a lot of money when creating a nice ebook of your own, especially if you really try the tips above.

It does take time for you to know exactly how to write a sales page that sells, but once you master these techniques, you can build an entire sales page that will always convert.

If you need help in writing sales pages please contact me and I will be glad to provide a great basic sales page at a minimum cost.  Contact me here!

The post How To Write A Sales Page That Sells appeared first on My Blog.

One of the first things that will help you to stay focused is making sure that each day you sit aside a period of time to work.  When you don’t have a regular job to go to from 9 to 5 it can be difficult not to procrastinate.  You might find that you tell yourself that you will get to it later and then later comes and you still haven’t accomplished what you needed to for the day.

The next thing you need to do is remind yourself that it is still a job. This will help keep your focused on the fact that even though you work from home it is still your source of income and in most cases people need their source of income to get by financially.  So if you remind yourself of this you will be able to realize that you have to get things accomplished.

These are only a few of the many different tips you can use to stay focused with your home business.  You might find that some days are easier than others when it comes to focusing.  At times you might have to just step back take a break and then come back to what you were doing so that you have a fresh new outlook on the situation.

No matter what the situation is you have set your sights on your home business and you should remind yourself of this when the going gets tough so that you don’t end up just throwing your hands up and then regretting it later down the road.

I know how hard this is as I have the same focus problem when I work from home.  I was discussing this with my husband and found he had the same issues.  We are trying some new techniques and hope to get better at this.  Let us know what you have done to create a better environment to work from home.  Leave a comment or send an email.

The post How To Stay Focused In Your Home Business appeared first on My Blog.

Too many people believe that a business just needs to exist for it to succeed but you will need to understand how social media helps businesses get more exposure.

More People

Everyone these days will have an account on a social network and so it makes sense that you use this to your advantage.

A website like Facebook has 800 million users and this is free exposure for your business. However, business owners tend to overlook this as simply just a place for teenagers to hangout but this is truly an internet marketing tool that you can use for years to come.  Check out more on how to build a Facebook Page for your business here.

Create Connections

When you use social media networks like Facebook or YouTube, you will be able to meet people from all over the world. These people can help your business grow in different ways and so you will need to focus on finding a way to use these connections wisely.

Social media will continue to grow and so you should get into it as soon as possible before you are left behind by your competition. Overall, social media will be around for a long time and it will only help your business grow.

Whether it is through exposure or simply just by being a way to connect with people from all over the world, social media will only do positive things for your business. Though some people will think that social media is just for entertainment, it is now a vital piece of internet marketing and being able to advertise your business.

If you are serious about being able to get more exposure on the internet, then you should certainly focus on utilizing social media as your main source of online exposure. And we would love to help you get your local business up on the social meida waves.  Check out this post on how we can help you.

Thanks,

The post How Social Media Helps Businesses Get More Exposure appeared first on My Blog.

Of course, even if you do know how to make sales, I’m sure you want to make more, right? Well, here are are just 5 simple ways to boost your commissions.

Yahoo Answers

To get more exposure quickly and nearly instantly, try going to Yahoo Answers and leaving some good feedback on certain questions.

Leave good answers that you know will be helpful, and then don’t forget to leave your affiliate link at the bottom.

Hire somebody to write articles for you

Article marketing is very important to do, but it can take up so much time. To save time, hire somebody who will write those articles for you, and then reap the profits of bigger sales.

Give more than the product

If you already get traffic but you still want better conversions, create an ebook on that topic or get a PLR package and offer it once they buy your offer.

This will give them that sense of which they’ll be getting more from you than a different source.

Time limited offer

If you plan to use the ebook bonus above, try telling them that they only have a few days left to avail of your special bonus.

Study

Have you ever visited a sales page and felt the need to really buy the product? Well, try following what that sales page did by implementing it on your site.  Catch your visitor’s attention the way a sales page would catch your opinion.

These are just 5 simple ways to boost your  commissions, but they can help you out tremendously.  They don’t require so much work, and even if it does seem like a lot of work, you can always hire somebody to do it all for you.  After implementing just a few of these tips, you are sure to make more commissions.

Hope you enjoy this article.  More will be coming.  Let us know what you would like to learn more about.  Leave a comment.

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Most people will admit that they have trouble with this problem but successful people will talk about how they are able to master the art of managing time. There are two things that you can do to manage your time better and to utilize your 24 hours to the fullest.

Turn The Internet Off

Though you do not have to turn the actual connection off, you will need to find a way to get off of time-wasting websites like Facebook and Twitter. If there was a way to count the time that people spend on these websites, they will realize just how much time they have wasted.

This precious time go towards working hard on a goal or practicing for something life. Once you are able to control yourself from going on these sites, you will then start to feel like time is on your side.

Stop Procrastinating

Most people will admit that they have said “I’ll do it tomorrow” at least once in their life and this is something that needs to stop.

Successful people have been able to do things in the present and so they are focused on the task at hand. If you are serious about being able to manage your time perfectly, you will need to stop procrastinating.

If you are a business owner who wants to learn more about being able manage your time wisely, then you will need to remember that these two things will greatly help. With the right mindset and a little patience, you will be able to finally feel like there is time for other things in life.

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