Developing a Profitable Web Business Concept by: Michael Lawrence

Copyright 2005 Cobrasurf.com The first step to starting a profitable online business of your own is developing a topic for your website. You want to select from a list of topics that interest you since you are going to have to write original content for your website. Too many "green" webmasters make the mistake of choosing a website topic that they think will make them a lot of money instead of one that interests them. They spend their time thinking about how to monetize their site before they actually have any visitors. What is the end result? A website that feels like a commercial. You have to remember that people are not using the internet to find your sales pitch they are using it to find information. What does this tell you? If you want to be a successful web business owner then your website should provide your users with valuable information resources related to your target keywords. Ask yourself, am I more likely to buy a product from a trusted information source whose website I find useful and visit frequently or a website loaded up with banners and links to every way man has invented to make money? Build your user's trust by providing valuable original content on your website. If you choose a topic that interest's you and that you are passionate about, the content will be much easier to develop. When developing your site concept choose 4-5 broad topics at first until you identify which one has the most profit potential through keyword analysis techniques. The top benefit of writing your own website content is that the search engines love it! If you want to get free targeted traffic to your website (of course you do, right?) having original, information filled website content makes the search engines very happy. As you continue to add valuable original content to your website you will start to notice other websites linking back to you. This will bring both free targeted traffic and higher link popularity with the search engines depending on the quality of the sites that are linking to your site. Search engine's see backlinks to a site as an indicator of how "popular" a site is. If you have a large number of websites linking back to your content you must be important, right? There is a lot to learn on this subject that goes beyond the scope of this article. Visitors to your website will already be pre-sold since the backlinks you will receive should be from "related websites”, or from “internet searches” performed on keywords related to your website content. Incorporate links to the products and services you are promoting within your website content and you have a powerful sales tool. This strategy will not "explode" your income overnight but will provide you a steady stream of pre-sold, targeted visitors from the search engines within 3-6 months. About the author: Michael Lawrence is the webmaster for http://www.cobrasurf.comproviding free website traffic and free website promotion. He also publishes a web promotion related blog which can be found at http://cobrasurf.blogspot.com

Consultants - Writing Articles for the Internet Blankets the World with your Expertise and Style by: Lynella Grant

A Consultant could be an Expert about Absolutely Anything

Calling yourself a “consultant” demands further clarification. A consultant who… What specific problems do you handle? And who needs what you know? Everyone? (Never true) Businesses selling to seniors? (A precisely defined niche) Success depends on how clearly you can define yourself and what you offer. How easily can potential clients understand it? 

You provide clients more than your expert knowledge and problem-solving skills. Your delivery style (tricks) are every bit as valuable as your knowledge base. We all relate to some businesses (personally and professionally) more effectively than to others. Great match-ups require something akin to a mating call to help a consultant find and connect with ideal clients. 

Every consultant is unique in important ways. Your challenge is to express those significant intangibles — so they set you apart from others using the same job title. Do clients understand what you can do for them? How you’re different from the competition? Why they’d prefer you? 

Article Marketing is Your Ideal Stage

Whether you’re selling a service, speaking or training, nothing persuades like offering a sample. Writing articles that highlight your style and expertise does that for you. A meaty, 600 to 800 word article is long enough to deliver a tangible taste. 

Once it’s widely posted, the message can be read by thousands. Some readers will search for what else you’ve said, or click over to your website. Writing repeated in-depth articles further establishes your niche, point of view, and expertise. They’re building your name recognition and readership in short order. 

Your stock-in-trade is information, so packaging it into articles makes you a content creator. The Internet voraciously demands a steady diet of new material. Websites, ezines (and now blogs) efficiently deliver ideas to targeted readers. But sad to say, too many articles consist of rehashed, low-grade material. Stand out with fresh, professional-quality information. Being a cut above builds respect and trust — a must for doing business down the road. 

Local Search can Further Define Your Market

Unlike a plumber or day care center, most consultants needn’t be confined to the local arena. Your Internet exposure connects you to a national or global audience, if that’s your goal. But if your target market is closer to home, articles still help to position you. 

Recent research by The Kelsey Group show that 70% use the Internet to make local buying decisions. And nowadays, 36% of search engine queries request local search results. That means the person includes a geographic term in their search engine query. For example, a query with: “employee benefit consultant” + Denver only lists the small pool of appropriate Denver providers. 

Every consultant needs to make sure their information appears in local search queries, http://www.yellowpagesage.com/localsearch.html . The trend toward local search is growing quickly. Businesses can easily be left out—which makes them unfindable by online searchers. Who can afford to miss 70% of their client base? Having your own website isn’t necessary — but still helpful for a variety of reasons.

Potential Clients will Check You Out Online

Surveys reveal that over half of respondents consider search engines a better source of buying information than Yellow Pages, newspapers or magazines. When someone enters your name or company into Google (in quotes), what comes up? 

It helps if your name is unusual. If not, follow up with “search within results” for a qualifier term (like your specialty, “employee benefits”) to find your cites.

In just a few moments, searchers get a picture of your professional standing and scope of recognition. They’re likely to be swayed by what they see. Who mentions you, and what are they saying? What kinds of links come to your website? If you’ve been publishing articles, they’ll also show up — enhancing your credibility and incoming links. 

In my own case, a Google search for my name showed about 100 cites before I started article promotions. Now that’s well over 3,000. So many cites boosted my website traffic and Page Rank as well. 

If you haven’t gone “ego surfing” on Google for mentions of your name, you should. Because the public will. Make sure there’s plenty of stuff for them to find that does you proud.


About the author:
--Dr. Lynella Grant Consultant and Author - Promote yourself, business, website, or book with online articles http://www.promotewitharticles.comFree how-to. Or let me write and submit your articles online for you. No learning curves (719) 395-9450 

A New Way To Create Digital Product Fast by: Mark Tse

During last few months, there is a new kind of Hot product rights available for internet marketers. It is called "Private Label Rights", or "Source Code Rights". So what is "Private Label Rights"? Although there are small variations between products, the basic requirement to define a "Private Label Rights" product is - by owning the rights, you are able to rebrand the product using your name and market the product as YOUR OWN creation. Actually this is not a new thing. Famous Writers hire ghostwriters to write for them. Software and Script Company hire programmers to write programs and scripts. And this time you pay someone to get the rights of using other's creation as yours, it is just similar. Then why owning "Private Label Rights" can be profitable? Let me compare this new rights with a very similar rights - "Resale Rights". By owning resale rights, you are able to resell the product as many as you can, and collect all money from every sale you make. However, you are not able to change the name of the product creator, so your customers know it is not your creation, and may become the original product creator's customers and purchase other products from him/her directly. This means you may lose profit by losing a customer and having a new competitor. On the other hand, by owning a "Private Label Rights" product, you are the product creator in customer's eyes. This make you more respectful and more professional. Your customers will be more likely to purchase from you. But is there any disadvantage of owning a "Private Label Rights" product? Yes there is one thing you must know when owning a "Private Label Rights" product. The rights may not be exclusive. That is, you may not be the only one rights owner. The actual product creator may sell the rights to many people including you. Therefore, to make your final product becomes unique, I recommend you do extra customization to your product, for example, change the product name, design a new cover, add extra words and features, etc. Final Words: Creating an original product not just requires solid knowledge and good writing skills, it is also time consuming and expensive. "Private Label Rights" is sure an excellent way for small business owners and home business people to have their own product fast and easy. And if you are using them correctly, it is highly possible to make you more money, increase your reputation, website traffic and sales. Are you interested to own some "Private Label Rights" products in less than 10 minutes? Here is a low cost collection for you: http://www.marktse.com/source-code-files/ About the author: This article is written by Mark Tse. Mark shares free tips, articles and downloads about Internet Marketing. You can visit his Internet Marketing Blog and read his latest posts here: http://www.marktse.com/blog/

Amazing Secrets Of A Free Traffic Generation MASTER by: Willie Crawford

Without traffic to your website, you're not going to make any money in your online business (unless you're able to tap into someone else's traffic). 

For many websites... especially new sites, one of the fastest, surest ways to drive traffic to the site is pay per click search engines. The RISK in using pay per clicks is that you don't know how well that traffic is going to convert before you've paid for it. You can adjust your webpages and your pay per click listing fairly quickly, but today I want to share with you two of my MAJOR free traffic generation methods. 

The most powerful weapon I've used in my marketing arsenal lately is actually... blogging. A blog is simply an on-line diary or weblog. Since they are usually updated frequently, the search engines love them and visit them often. 

The way that I use my blogs is that when I make a post, I include a link to a site or webpage that I want spidered by the search engines. Google actually visits my blogs daily, and takes snapshots of everything there, and follows links from the pages, and takes snapshots of those pages! So, I make minor changes to pages that I want to get ranked higher, and then I "help" Google to find those updated pages. It's a simple, ethical, and very powerful method. 

I'm fairly new at blogging, but I'm quickly getting the hang of it. Most of what I know about blogging I learned from a course by my friend Paul Short. The course is called RSS Exposed. I recommend you get a copy of Paul's course today and set aside 2 hours to digest it. Get it at: 
http://www.profitautomation.com/app/adtrack.asp?AdID=109478 

Paul is like me... he's very busy, and doesn't have time for fluff. So his course is under 100 pages, and it's all "stuff" that you can read and then immediately implement. 

Does this stuff work thought. My friend Stephen Pierce taught me that NOTHING is more powerful than concrete PROOF. So let's look at how I rank for a few keywords that I'm focusing on right now. I'll show you with a few of the more than 100 niches that I have top 10.... often top 3 rankings for. I know that showing you these examples may attract the attention of potential and existing competitors, so I won't show you the most lucrative ones :-) 

Readers who know me, know that my real online success started with a simple soul food or southern cookbook! That one cookbook still generates a very nice six-figure income! This season of the year, I know that people are on-line searching for holiday recipes and also gift-giving ideas. My logs show me how my market finds me... keywords and sources. They show that for the cookbook, most find my site through Google, with MSN being a distant second. Here's how I ranked for a few cooking related terms (as of November 21st, 2004): 

Soul Food Recipes - #2 out of 1,220,000 
Soul Food - #3 out of 8,840,000 
Soul Food Cookbook - #2 out of 273,000 
Deep Fried Turkey Recipe - #3 out of 257,000 
Deep Fried Turkey Recipes - #4 out of 302,000 
Sweet Potato Pie - #2 out of 614,000 
Sweet Potato Pie Recipe #2 out of 394,000 
Fried Chicken Recipe - #2 out of 861,000 
Fried Chicken Recipes - #2 out of 1,160,000 
Southern Fried Chicken - #2 out of 436,000 
Deep Fried Turkey - #14 out of 330,000 
Pound Cake Recipe - #2 out of 547,000 
Macaroni And Cheese Recipe - #1 out of 207,000 
Collard Green Recipe - #4 out of 21,200 
Southern Recipes - # 15 out of 4,970,000 
... I guess I need to work on that last listing :-) 

One of my other markets is "Internet Marketing," and those looking to start or improve upon an online or home-based business. How do I rank there? Here are a few of the thousands of terms that bring me in free search engine traffic (again based upon my website logs): 

Internet Marketing 101 - # 1 out of 5,550,000 
Internet Marketing Course - #2 out of 10,600,000 
Free Internet Marketing Course - #2 out of 11,800,000 
Free Internet Marketing Lessons - #2 out of 2,810,000 
Homebased Business - #9 out of 1,930,000 
Homebased Business Course - #1 out of 522,000 
Free Homebased Business Course - #1 out of 483,000 

For those of you without your own product, let's see how I do with products I have reprint rights to. One is a web copywriting course by Bob Serling called Power Copywriting For The Internet. When someone is searching for that course they search on very specific terms... but... since their search is so specific, a higher percentage of them will buy when they get to my website. This is a more niche market, but some of my rankings are: 

Internet Copywriter + Bob Serling - #1 out of 985 
Web Copywriting + Bob Serling - # 7 out of 918 
Web Copywriting Course + Bob Serling - #5 out of 16,400 
Power Copywriting For The Internet - #2 out of 128,000 

Another product that I have reprint rights to is an excellent course on how to increase your website, and advertising, conversion rates. It's called, "Small Changes - Big Profits." Here's my ranking on keywords customers have recently used to find (and buy) this product: 

Increase Website Conversion - #6 out of 2,480,000 
How to Increase Website Conversion - # 6 our of 2,490,000 
Note that when you enter that last phrases, Google tells you that "how to" is a very common phrase and therefore not included in the search. However, notice that Google found an additional 10,000 pages when I gave it that expression. Ok, so I'm confused too :-) 

My second most powerful weapon right now is that I write lots of ezine articles... like this one. Since 1998, I would estimate that I've written over 300. Those articles are a very powerful way of getting one-way links to my site. Those articles are a powerful way for people with specific problems or interest to find my sites. 

Here's a simple example of how powerful articles can be. I know for a fact that the majority of people in network marketing aren't doing that great. I also know why. The proof that I know what they are doing wrong, and how to correct it, is provided by the fact that I was recently the #2 producing representative in a major network marketing company for 2 consecutive months. The only reason I wasn't #2 longer is that I've only been with the company a little over 4 month, and that in my fourth month, I was the #1 top producing rep in the entire company! 

Recognizing what many network marketers are doing wrong... especially those that market over the internet, I wrote an article on the topic. This article targeted those who wanted to know why their network marketing is failing. So if you go to Google and enter... 

"Network Marketing Failing" without the quotation marks, you'll see that the returns for webpages featuring my article take up the entire first page. If a person were to type in the statement "My Network Marketing Is Failing" my page ranks #1 out of 312,000. Do people search on these terms? Not as many as search on more competitive terms, but why not go after easier terms... why not go after "the low-hanging fruit." 

People do visit my sites after reading the hundreds of articles that I've written, and they do make purchases and join my network marketing team. That's proof that writing and properly using articles is a very powerful traffic generation technique. I have lots of resources on how to properly do this inside my private membership site. If you're not a member, you should join today. Inside the site you'll find lots more solid, usable information like you just gotten in this article. 

I've just shared with you two of my most powerful free traffic generation methods. I actually know HUNDREDS but only use a handful. I believe that it's better to get really good at using a few rather than tinkering with (but never mastering) many. You need to do your research and find the techniques that work best for you. 

If you'd like a really comprehensive course on website traffic and sales generation methods, I recommend John Reese's Traffic Secrets Course. Check out John's course to learn a ton of ways to outflank your competition at: 
http://www.profitautomation.com/app/adtrack.asp?AdID=110203 
It's 14 DVD's, so realize that it will throw a LOT of information at you. Make sure that you pick just a few techniques he covers, and then put them into immediate action rather than letting the sheer volume of information overwhelm you. 

As I've demonstrated, being a master at generating free, responsive traffic doesn't have to be complicated or even difficult :-) 

About the author:


Willie Crawford is a corporate president, published author, seminar speaker and host, tele-seminar speaker and host, retired military officer, karate black belt, master network marketing trainer, and lifetime student of marketing. He shows people how to actually generate substantial income on-line using very simple, easily modeled systems. An example of such a system that you can study and duplicate is at: 
http://ProfitMagician.com

All Hits Are Not Created Equal by: Jim Edwards

After all the debate over website design, shopping carts and credit card processors, every website owner eventually comes to the startling realization that they need one more thing to survive - website traffic! Without website traffic it's the same as building an expensive billboard and, instead of placing it alongside a busy highway, you hide it in your basement where nobody can see it. Upon realizing they need traffic, most website owners run out and start blowing chunks of money and time trying to get "hits" to their sites, but they fail to realize that all "hits" are not created equal. In their quest to get eyeballs to their websites, most online operators don't realize there's a big difference between driving "general" traffic to your website and driving "targeted" traffic. Just getting any traffic is the same technique TV advertisers use. They flash ads on the screen in front of people who can't afford or don't need the advertised product. Since general advertising can't hit specific targets, they hit everyone and hope that someone in their target audience is actually watching at that moment. Spam, banner ads, "safe-lists" and similar traffic techniques fall into this "general" category. "Targeted" traffic is made up of people who are genuinely interested in what you have to say or sell online. These people either share the same interests or have an immediate need or problem they are trying to solve. "Targeted" traffic is best because the people hitting your website have a much higher likelihood of actually making a purchase. Targeted traffic comes from people following recommended links on other sites, typing in relevant keywords into the search engines, or even reading articles you've written on a particular subject and then clicking over to your site for more information. If you don't already know where to find the best sources of targeted traffic for your website, you will need to experiment with lots of different sources to find the ones that bring visitors who give you the most "bang for your buck." The fastest way to determine which avenues provide the most targeted traffic is by using an "ad tracker". An "ad tracker" is a simple program, residing on your web server, that tracks how many visitors your site gets from a particular source and how many of them purchased. Though it sounds simple, most businesses don't do this! Most businesses can't tell you their visitor to buyer conversion percentage and, therefore, don't know exactly how much they can invest in traffic generation and remain profitable. Whether you pay for your website traffic with cash (pay-per-click search engines, ezine ads), or you pay for it with the sweat of your brow (article distribution, free search engines), you must identify your best and most profitable sources of targeted traffic that convert into buyers, subscribers, or leads. Failure to identify and track where your buyers come from and then calculate how much they really cost you ultimately translates into failure for your online business. About the author: Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use free articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or affiliate links... Need MORE TRAFFIC to your website or affiliate links? "Turn Words Into Traffic" reveals the secrets for driving Thousands of NEW visitors to your website or affiliate links... without spending a dime on advertising! Click Here> http://www.turnwordsintotraffic.com

Aim At The Bullseye And Your Online Home Business Will Prosper by: Kirk Bannerman

Traffic is one thing, but targeted traffic is everything. 

You have no doubt seen dozens of offers similar to "10,000 hits 
per hour driven to your website!". This type of website traffic 
is completely untargeted and will undoubtedly result in a very 
low conversion ratio. It's basically "throw it up against the 
wall and hope something sticks". The big incoming numbers give 
the illusion of progress, but you will achieve better results 
with a lower volume of highly targeted traffic. 

I speak from experience because in the early days of developing 
my home business, I went for the big numbers instead of focusing 
on targeting prospects. It took me a while to appreciate the 
importance of targeting (quality) instead of just going for the 
big numbers, but it was a lesson well learned. 

Exchanging links has been an important part of generating website 
traffic for quite some time, but the vast majority of people 
looking to trade links don't understand that just wildly swapping 
links with any willing webmaster is not the way to go. 

For the last few years, most webmasters have been in a "pleasing 
Google" mode since Google had such a dominant position. Now that 
challengers are emerging, most notably Yahoo, MSN, and Ask 
Jeeves, the search engine ranking landscape is becoming much more 
complicated than just marching to the tune Google played. 

Many website owners seem to be of the opinion that the sole 
purpose of exchanging links is to try to improve the search 
engine ranking position of their website. While it is true that 
links pointing to your website can help your search engine 
ranking, the reason for obtaining inbound links goes far deeper 
than that. 

In my opinion, the targeted traffic that relevant links pointing 
to your site will bring can be as important as the traffic that 
comes to your website from people using search engines. This is 
where linking philosophy comes in. If you limit yourself to 
exchanging links only with websites that have a theme highly 
relevant to your own, the traffic you receive from those links 
will be far more targeted (valuable) than traffic you might 
receive from links with websites that have nothing to do with 
your theme. 

Not only do highly relevant links bring you more highly targeted 
traffic, but they also play a "customer satisfaction" role for 
visitors to your website who arrived there as a result of a 
search engine query. If someone arrives at your website after 
performing a search for, lets say "work at home" and then finds 
your website full of links to a bunch of off topic sites (Viagra, 
online casinos, hotel reservations, sports betting, etc, etc) 
the impression is often not favorable and may actually drive 
your visitor away before they consider whatever it is that your 
website itself is offering. 

Keep your eye on the bullseye and develop highly targeted traffic 
by having good content on your website and exchanging links with 
highly relevant sites that also offer good content. Remember, 
traffic is one thing, but targeted traffic is everything. 



About the author:
Kirk Bannerman operates a successful home based business and 
coaches others seeking to start their own home based business. 
Visit his website at 
Legitimate Home Based Business for more details.