http://bit.ly/8ybFV2 – Are you another small business owner who is trying to do everything, including your web marketing. Couldn’t your business benefit by you spending your time more effectively? Read the rest of this entry »
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If you are thinking about your next move in these times of economic turmoil, you have undoubtedly begun to think about your own business. With corporations now in the habit of laying off more employees than they are hiring, it’s a wise move to think of how you can protect yourself. Remember: if you are in control of your own fate, you are in the driver’s seat of your life. Your own business will succeed based on what you do with it.
There are millions of options available to any individual thinking of starting a business. How can you set up a company that will reflect your ideals, your goals? Perhaps the greatest solution is to start a lifestyle business. A lifestyle business focuses on what you love to do in your free time and making that a key source of your income. Can you imagine loving what you do and getting paid for it? That beautiful scenario can be achieved with a lifestyle business.
A perfect example of a lifestyle business is in outdoor sports. There is a feeling of individuality that naturally comes with outdoor sports.
Are there ideas you know would make a skiing experience better? The options are limitless: maybe there’s a type of ski you would love to see designed. If your expertise is not in design, you can partner up with someone who can help.
Do your summer days lead you to the beach in search of the perfect wave? Every surfer can think of hundreds of ways their surfing experience could improve. Maybe it’s the flexibility of a wetsuit. Maybe it’s the stickiness of wax for a surfboard. Whatever it is, your idea can lead you into a brilliant business move.
Sports are not the only side of lifestyle businesses. Abstract concepts, different ways of thinking and being, are just as viable.
Has meditation led you to success in other areas of your life? Maybe you can start a website to promote the best that meditation has to offer. The same goes for yoga. Directing the world’s yoga enthusiasts to a single website will send advertisers flocking in your direction.
In many ways, a lifestyle can be recession-proof. For example, maybe you love staying in shape and leading an active life. Fitness is both therapeutic and a way to extend your life. No matter how the economy is performing, people want to stay fit and feeling good. Why not capitalize on the moment?
If you are better in financial fields, there are plenty of lifestyle businesses suited for you as well. The idea of a lifestyle business is supporting a way of life and enjoying it at the same time. If you are a wise investor, you can direct your business from home and stay with your family for all the important moments.
Maybe you have the idea already in your head. Why not try and flesh out the concept? Maybe you need some ideas to get you going. If so, the internet is the way to research what’s going on with small businesses. You can even find some shining examples of businesses waiting for a partner with ideas like yours.
For more information about my online business marketing services and the power of internet advertising visit my website
Tags: Advertising, business, business marketing, education, Internet Marketing, leisure, marketing, Online Advertising, online business, SMB, society, work from home
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My internet passion started back in 2003. A little eBook set me on the road, it was Google Cash by Chris Carpenter. I set up a few campaigns in a relatively competition free Australia and started making money directly promoting affiliate programs.
I watched as more and more people entered the market though, forcing click bids up. I watched while Google changed their rules, time and time again making it harder for affiliates to make money with pay per click. I watched and worked up to the point where the time involved in managing pay per click campaigns as an affiliate, was no longer worth the commissions the campaigns earned.
So I changed my approach. I started to build websites and learn about search engine optimisation. I still used PPC marketing, but to drive traffic to my own websites while they optimised in the organic search terms. The result for me was half a dozen highly optimised and profitable website businesses. Of these, only one has its own product. The others either promote affiliate programs or sell advertising space.
During this time, I have frequently been asked by small and medium sized businesses to help them with their internet marketing. I’ve never promoted myself in this way, they all came to me from word of mouth, referred to me from others I’ve done a good job for. The business owners who have come to me all had two things in common. First, they could see potential for their business on the internet. Second, their efforts had been frustrated by an unscrupulous and poorly skilled internet operator.
There is a real issue with the internet industry, it is packed with these bogus operators. There are graphic designers who put together internet masterpieces, charge a fortune for the website, yet no-one can find them. There are marketing professional who apply all their skills, yet they know nothing about the internet so their message doesn’t find an ear to fall on. Our industry is unregulated and we are largely self trained. Unfortunately this has left the industry open to the unscrupulous and ignorant. Our clients have been damaged and the industry suffers also.
Every week I see how these charlatans work. They prey on the assumption that their clients are ignorant. Despite the fact they know so little themselves, they assume their clients know less and therefore can be baffled with a few technical phrases and a pretty graph.
Gold Coast Surfboards is a great example to prove the point. This is my travel business. Its the only website I run to date which sells its own product, a long-term surfboard hire service. Do a Google search on Gold Coast Surfboard Hire. You can find me easily. Or even use the less specific search phrase Surfboard Hire. You’ll see how well this website is optimised in the search engines.
Despite this I get the so called “professionals” writing to me every week trying to sell me their SEO services. “We can put your business on steroids” they tell me, getting you on the first page of Google on such terms as “Surf Board Accessories” and “Holiday Rentals”.
I think I’ve figured out what these charlatans do. I think they find a small business website and mine the search engines for “sort of” related terms, until they find one which is pretty low on Google. For my website, the type of terms that they come up with are “Surf Accessories” and “Holiday Rentals”. Terms which are related but not really relevant. Once they have found one, they’ll construct a sales pitch based on the traffic they’ll send my website by optimising it for those terms. Of course there is always a decent amount of scare mongering in these sales pitches, telling me how much of my business is going to my competitors, business which I can claim for my own.
If I didn’t understand internet marketing, I may have used these charlatans. I’m sure many small businesses have been convinced by their slick presentations. And at the end of their work though, I would have a website which attracts completely irrelevant visitors. People looking for surf accessories or people looking to rent a hotel room, or car for their holiday. This probably would have undermined the optimisation work I did on “Surfboard Hire” and related terms as well, meaning my real clients would have gone to my competitors.
If you are under pressure from an internet salesman to sign up for their optimisation services, my advice is to first get a really good understanding from you clients, as to which search phrases they use on the internet when they are looking for your product. If the salesmen are trying to get you to optimise other phrases, don’t do business with them. At the very least they have not researched your market enough to work on your website. At its worse, they are just manipulating you in an attempt to wring some money out of you. Either way, it will damage your business.
If you are thinking about doing some work to your website but do not know where to start, ask around. The really good operators work on reputation and do little self promotion. When you do this though, be clear that you are looking for an internet marketer, not a designer or developer. Its one thing to make a masterpiece for the internet like many graphic designers do, but a whole new kettle of fish putting it where all your clients can find it.
If you are an internet professional reading this article, its time for all of us to smarten up. We need to look after the industry and we can only do this by being ethical in the manner in which we operate. So please, stop going out trying to extract a pound of flesh, go out to add value to your clients. Once you are adding value, the new clients will come, following your reputation. Continue operating as you are though and soon no-one will talk to internet professionals anywhere.
Damian Papworth, appalled by the lack of ethics in internet marketing, promotes ethics before profits.
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