Many people have a desire to start an online business but very few actually understand what it takes to truly be successful. With this article I am going to show you what I consider to be the 3 D’s of success.
According to dictionary.com, the definition of drive is an inner urge that stimulates activity or inhibition or a vigorous onset or onward course toward a goal or objective. You have to be very driven if you want to succeed online. You have to have that Read More→
If you haven’t read part one of secrets of successful internet millionaires, please do so now. With this article I am going to give you a few more secrets of every successful internet millionaire. The first one is that they work hard. They don’t play around with their business. They wake up and get to work. Not saying that they work all day, even though I am sure that some of them do, but I’m just saying that they are willing to do what needs to be done. Sadly, most people aren’t. Yes, they want millionaire status but they don’t want to do the work that it requires to reach it.
Another secret is that they are always learning. If you want to be successful you can Read More→
I am a huge fan of several of the top internet marketers. All of which are without a doubt millionaires. They include Frank Kern, Jeff Walker and John Reese just to name a few. I like to study them and see what they all have in common. Below are just a few things I have come up with.
The first thing I noticed about all of these guys is that they have a clear sense of direction. They know exactly what they want to do and they know what their next move will be. They are constantly thinking and talking about their goals and what they hope to accomplish. Here is a little exercise you can do that I got from Brian Tracy. This is something you Read More→
The business world has gone digital. More and more businesses are relying on the global market, which the internet provides, in order to secure business. Obviously, this still depends on the type of business you are running. If you are a local plumber you are probably more worried about getting local business than you are about capturing a market halfway across the world. But for a lot of businesses, getting a larger audience is never a bad thing. Making your business website easy to navigate is crucial for you to be able to get more people to buy products or services from you.
The first step in making your business website easy to navigate is to make sure that it is simple. Some companies get too excited about all of the products and services that they offer and just throw everything down on the landing page. This is the best way to scare away customers and lose business. Your landing page should be simple and have clear instructions and directions on how and where to buy your products or services. Break your site up into a few different categories including the ‘Home’ page, specific product or service category pages, an order page, and also an ‘About Us’ page with your various contact details. If you have too many categories and only have a few products or services then it might be confusing to any visitor. Make sure that each page is clear about what is included in that section.
Next, you want to make sure that you have a clear navigation bar or ‘site map’ on your front page. Typically this works best when it is either on the side of the page or at the top. That way people can easily go between pages. You may also want to use a web template that offers a search feature, so potential customers can type in their queries to find out where something is on your site.
Last of all, you want to make sure that you have a call to action on each of your pages. If you are selling something, then you want to make it is easy as possible for your customers to get to the order page. The more steps that a visitor has to go through to make a purchase, the less likely they are to do it. Therefore, you should have an ‘Order Now’ button on every relevant page on your website site.
By Marco Lombardo
When you’re trying to get the name and message of your business out to as many people as possible, you are going to want to make sure that you are representing your business. You want to do this in a colorful and unique way, but you will also want to be informative. You want to let your clients know why your business is important to them and why you offer what no other business can offer. If your business has a website, then you probably already have this kind of information posted for public consumption. The bad news, however, is that you need to have this information out to the public before they visit your site. In other words, you need to give them a reason to visit your site in the first place. In this article you will learn why you should have an ebrochure or ibrochure for your business.
In case you don’t know, an ebrochure or ibrochure is just like a normal brochure, except it is distributed online. You can do everything on this kind of brochure that you can do on a conventional brochure and more. You can add videos and sound clips on the internet. The best part about these online brochures is that you can reach more people than you could have by using the conventional techniques. With the conventional brochures, you used to have to set them up in local shops and institutions and hope they would catch people’s eye. Nowadays, you can send the brochures through email. You can also post them on social networking sites. Instead of reaching between ten and thirty people per day, you can reach thousands and maybe millions of people.
Another reason you should have an ebrochure or ibrochure for your business is to keep up with the latest technological developments. Let’s face it, if you don’t keep up with the trends, it’s going to give the wrong impression about your business. It’s going to make your business seem slow, behind the times or it’s going to seem like you don’t care to reach people. With online brochures, you can show that your business wants to reach new clients and that you are excited about embracing the technology of the future.
Finally, an ebrochure or ibrochure can benefit your business by giving it a new look. Maybe the ads and social networking give a general feel. With an online brochure, you can really add a lot of information. You can include customer testimonials and reviews of your products.
Marco Lombardo
The most important tool for any business (online or offline) is an effective marketing strategy; without this, and therefore without sustained income, no business can survive. The internet is particularly suited to marketing due to the enormous reach available; nevertheless, a solid online marketing strategy is required if true success is to be achieved.
An effective online marketing strategy need not be overly complicated and one of the best ways to achieve such a strategy is to build an opt-in mailing list. A common phrase in online marketing is ‘the money is in the list’ and this is certainly true for all but the most specialized online marketers. Why is this? Well, an opt-in list allows you to communicate with potential customers (your opt-ins) to promote your business.
An opt-in list is essentially a list of email addresses of people who have subscribed to receive further information from you, usually by inserting their contact details in a website opt-in form and subsequently confirming their desire to subscribe. Since, opting-in is an option and completely up to the website visitor, their confirmation of subscription enables you to avoid being accused of sending spam email.
Creating an opt-in list can be very beneficial to your business, since you are able to continuously send newsletters and emails promoting the products and services that your business offers. The following list summarizes the advantages of having an opt-in list associated with your business:
1. A mailing list will be your most important business assett
Most, if not all, successful online marketers will identify their mailing list as their most important business assett. The list allows the marketer to promote products and services in a controlled manner to a targeted audience.
2. A mailing list is always current
Your mailing list will never become redundant – as long as your subscribers need a solution to a problem then you are able to promote such solutions (products and services) through your mailing list.
3. The larger you list, the larger your profits
Clearly, the larger the list of subscribers you have on your list, the larger the number of potential customers you have as your mailing audience. As long as you are providing products and services that your subscribers need, then it follows that the larger your list, the larger your income and profit.
It can be seen from the above that an opt-in mailing list can easily become the heart of and most important element of an online business and can be the key to the survival of that business.
Keith Blackburn
We are often bombarded with facts that online business, conducted through a website, is vastly different to offline business. Indeed, if you run an online business there are many unique skills that you will need to acquire if it is going to be successful. However, there are some great lessons that we can learn from offline business which can be applied to your online endeavours.
Firstly, your web site is just like a shop window. When you look through the window it should be inviting and look attractive to your target customers. Therefore, the colour schemes you choose for your website are important and need to convey the right image. Just like an eye-catching sign above a shop, your website should have a memorable logo and mission-statement, letting your visitors know what you can do for them.
Secondly, when you go into a shop, if you are anything like me, you want to find what you are looking for quickly. Therefore, you may ask a helpful shop assistant where you can find a particular item. Alternatively, the isles may be clearly labelled so you can find things easily. Any website you design will need to do the same thing; the helpful shop assistant can come in the form of ‘contact us for help’ tab, a ‘frequently asked questions’ section (or FAQ’s). Alternatively, you may wish to provide help to your visitors by using audio or video. A ‘site map’ on your website is the ideal substitute for the clearly labelled isles of a store; it will show your visitors where everything is on your website and will allow them to navigate their way around it easily.
Lastly, after you have found the item you were looking for in the shop, you will need to pay for it. If you have a long queue to join you may consider just giving up and leaving the store. Your website will not have queues but if your visitors have to wait too long for pages to load when they want to purchase an item, they might decide to go elsewhere. You also need to make the buying process as simple as possible. For instance, a customer can make payments quickly via Paypal or another secure online payment system.
In summary, a business is a business, whether online or offline. The common sense ideas that you use to develop a successful offline business can be applied to your online business activities. Furthermore, at every stage of the selling process, you need to think from the customer’s or visitor’s perspective.
Marco Lombardo
