Friday, May 14, 2010

Free Traffic Sites: Getting Your Online Ad Seen and Noticed

Advertising is the life line of small business. Ask any owner what his top wish is for his business and I guarantee it is getting more potential customers to notice the business. When we talk about this online, it is translated by using the word traffic. Free traffic sites are places that let you exchange ads with others and get your ad seen in exchange for watching other folks ads. It could be banners, email, websites, text ads or similar mediums you are exchanging, the principle is the same. So how do you get into getting all these free places to show people what your business is all about? Let's look at some smart ways to get it done.

1) First, develop an overall advertising strategy. This will vary by what product your business is trying to sell or service you want people to use. For free advertising, I suggest starting by using forums and social sites as a start. You approach people in conversation that way and interested parties will pick up on your sig files on your posts.

2) When you advertise, use a squeeze page for the online viewer. You want to get into email marketing and you want to build a potential customer list. This allows email relationship marketing and allows you to use a sales funnel to present newsletters, updates and special sales info to your subscribers.

3) Plan some time for using free traffic sites to advertise. T o be effective at these type sites, it will be important to focus all your advertising for one ad. Granted, you will have to use tests to see what ads work the best, but when you do find it, try to stick with the one ad and use it everywhere. A pinpointed approach will capture more subscribers for your lists and result in growing the number of people who notice you.

4) Don't forget Blogs and local ads! They are good too. Use banners or text ads about your business on your blog. For local ads, flyers, cards and bulletin board posts are effective too. 

Lists address marketing should be a priority for your business; If you are not a writer, that's ok, hire someone to do it for you, but just get it done. You want to keep feeding information to your readers while at the same time sending them offers to take action on. A free ebook, 10% off a product for reading an email or any other offer can prompt readers to act. Offer a free class or give away a book to people that respond. If you stay in their email box, they will see and read your emails which is what you want.

Taking advantage of free traffic sites online is easy. Remember to plan your advertising, stay committed and take your time and do the follow up to make sure people get on your customer list. Building the list will build your business along with it and get you noticed.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Can Writing a Home Business Blog Be For You?



Writing a blog is a commitment of time, energy and resources. A lot of people often fail at writing a blog because they cannot keep up with the progression of skills it takes to be successful at it. Can writing a home business blog be for you? Lets look at some aspects of blogging and how you can make it work for you -  even with no time to write.

A blog needs ideas and innovations people are interested in. As a home business blog writer your job should be writing about information and solutions your customers want. So what might that be? Writing about your expertise in solving their problems and the best aspects of your business they can use would make very interesting topics. Product reviews of products they might consider purchasing are also interesting. A blog should also be interactive - good two way conversation between readers and the editor is great as is contributions from your audience and responses to items such as surveys and polls.

No time to write? That's not always a bad thing. It may be that blogging is something you may opt not to do, choosing to do other parts of your business model to make up for not having a blog. An item I've started to find useful is blog post scheduling. You don't have to post an item you write right away - you can choose to write about it sometime during the week and add topics by choosing during the week when you will write. Or, if you are really pressed for time, you can always hire the writing of the blog out to someone else. Scheduling also allows you to polish up your article and edit before putting up a post.

When you do use blog post scheduling, be sure to leave time to research topics you want to write on. Also linking up to social networking sites you are a member of is a good idea. When researching, look at what topics other bloggers or readers have written on (you can do this at other blogs or forums) and make comments on what you read. The comments should, of course, be linked back to your own blog. Refer occasionally to any articles or posts that might be interesting to your own readers. They will thank you for going the extra mile to find the info for them.

Now about the problem of time to write - places like Elance often have writers hungry for writing assignments. You can pay by the post and often supplement your own posts with that of a guest poster from time to time. You can also repost articles from places like Ezinearticles if you see content that fits your audience.

Is home business blog writing for you? Only you can choose to put the time and effort into making your blog a great place for your readers. The dividends can be great and it can generate some extra attention for your business.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Earning A Little Extra in Hard Times

In these tough economic times, running your own shop from home is a difficult prospect. Still, there are ways to make a dollar if you use your common sense and use a well developed formula instead of trying to reinvent the wheel. People are hungry right now for leaders to show them how to work from home and it's a definite trend you can cash in on. Some ideas for you to check out right now:

Cash saving businesses. Right now, people are looking for ideas that will help them get extra mileage out of their dollar. One of the most savvy things I've seen is by a company called Creative Deductible Solutions. The company specializes in a new, unique solution for consumers who have full collision insurance coverage on their cars. It's called Collision Deductible Reserve Plan (CDRP). It helps you to save money by increasing the deductible on your insurance and paying a small amount each month toward the amount of the deductible ($1000). Right now, the company is offering to set up entrepreneurs the opportunity to sell these policies which don't require any expertise and is a relatively cheap business to start.

Old fashion MLM cookie cutter businesses. Many of these you can start for free, follow the directions and start generating income with little or no income. SFI is the best I've seen with great little income producing programs like TripleClicks or EyeEarn which are eye catching and appealing to almost everyone. Just sign up, follow the directions and watch your income start increasing.

Info is king. Information business are celebrating a real revival right now due to people looking for all kinds of specialized information from topics like romance, travel, to things like what insurance to buy or how to save on home improvements. Clickbank is still the granddaddy of info products online and it's the best place to find a niche to specialize and offer to people who are hungry to get info on a particular subject. Affiliate Alert is a great program that can steer you through all the pitfalls if this is something you want to try and it's a steal for under thirty bucks.

Got the picture? Find an idea that you can work for little to nothing, follow the directions and get yourself on the road to making money. Working from home has never been easier and NOW is the time to get started. So stop procrastinating and get yourself in gear right now while the opportunity presents itself.

E, king of nye