But one thing I quickly learned, is that having an online business that you can work from home has it’s own unique challenges. For one thing, working from home. I always laugh when I see those commercials on t.v. about starting an online business and the people are so tickled because they get to work in their p.j.’s… big deal. Don’t get me wrong, I love working from home but before you dive in you have to make sure it’s for you. Some people just aren’t cut out for it.

For one thing, you have to make sure that you can kick yourself in the rear so that you don’t blow off work to go lay by the pool (o.k. I’ve done that). You also have to make sure that your family understands that just because you’re home doesn’t mean you’re available. Let them know when your office hours are and that when you are ‘at work’ that they have to leave you alone.

If you want to succeed online you have to make sure that you invest some time and money into a course that will teach you the skills you need. You don’t have to learn everything before you get started but you do need a fairly strong grasp of some basic concepts.

The first of these is the ability to drive traffic to a website. There are many ways you can do this, for now though stick with free methods like article marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. I wouldn’t even bother to invest in any course to learn pay per click (PPC) at this point since it has a steep learning curve and it’s expensive.

You should also consider starting your online career by becoming an affiliate. When you sign up to become an affiliate you are simply agreeing to drive traffic to a website, if a sale is made you will receive a commission. Simple. You don’t need to stock any products or talk to anyone to make a sale, just drive traffic. It’s also free to sign up to become an affiliate. Of course, if your job is to drive traffic, you need to know how to drive traffic.

Before you jump into an online business take stock of what I’ve told you. It’s important that you go into it with the right mindset so you don’t get overwhelmed. There is a lot of hype online, be careful you don’t fall into any of it but with all the advantages it’s easy to see why internet marketing is a great career choice for many people.

For anyone who may not know, a keyword is the word or phrase you, or someone else, would type into the computers browser to find a certain product or service online. For example, if you want to buy a book on gardening you would type something like: gardening book into whatever search engine you want to use whether it be Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. That is what a keyword is (and it can be more than one word too).

Now to utilize the keywords in your article you have to be careful how many times you use the word as well as exactly where you put it in your article. That’s where keyword placement comes into play. You don’t want to have the mindset that if one keyword is good fifty must be better. No, the search engines are very smart these days and they will see through that ploy and you will be penalized by not having your article rank very well.

When it comes to where to place your keywords a good rule of thumb is to place your keyword in the title,the first and last paragraphs and at least once in the article body. If you have a particularly long article you can get away with adding it a few more times without having to worry about the search engines banning you for keyword stuffing.

Now that you have a better idea of what a keyword is and how many times you should put it in your article, you need to know where you can go to find a good list of keywords. The first place you should start is with the Google keyword tool. This tool is completely free to use and will provide you with accurate and up to date keyword information. Keep in mind that what you are looking for is a list of keywords that have a lot of monthly searches with a fairly small amount of competition. Now what constitutes a ‘lot’ of searches and a ‘small’ amount of competition will vary from niche to niche so you’ll have to define those terms yourself.

Once you’re a little more versed in internet marketing and you have some money to invest, you may want to buy a keyword tool that can give you even more flexibility and more information than just the amount of searches and competition. Many of the paid keyword tools will let you know not only the amount of competition but how strong those competitors are as well as how likely some of the keyword phrases are to lead to a sale. That type of information can be extremely valuable in helping you determine what keywords to target and which ones to skip.

Step one to your successful online business is to find a great list of keywords. Step two is to determine the proper density and keyword placement so that your articles rank high in the search engines.

First of all, you have to determine what the purpose of your site will be and how you plan on getting your traffic. If you are putting up a website to sell a product or service online your site name should be something directly related to that product or service. To drastically increase the amount of organic traffic (this it the traffic that basically ‘stumbles’ upon your website because the search term they used matches the keywords you’ve used for your sites domain name and any on site search engine optimization you’ve done) you should create a domain name that is a highly searched for search term.

To illustrate what I mean let’s look at the example of a niche on dog training. Let’s say that you’ve done keyword research on this niche and you’ve found the term ‘simple dog training gets a lot of monthly searches and doesn’t have a lot of competition. That would be a great keyword to target. If you could get a domain name that was SimpleDogTraining.com you’d likely get a lot of free traffic.

If this is your primary goal you may want to also consider using a .net or a .org extension especially if any non-organic traffic you get will come from links in articles or PPC which people will just click on as opposed to typing in the address (this makes a difference because if people are actually typing the address into their browser bar they are more likely to type a .com than any other extension). You can also have a domain name that is a little longer, usually no more than 4 words is a good rule of thumb.

If the purpose of your site is to encourage visitors to tell their friends and recommend other’s check it out you’ll want a shorter, easier to remember domain name since most people will have to type the domain name into the browser themselves rather than just click a link and the longer the domain name (or if you have an unusual extension) people will most likely mis-type it and not get to your website.

Once you’ve got a list of viable domain names it’s time to see if they are actually available. To do that go to GoDaddy.com, DomainCheapsters.com or do a search for other’s online. Enter your desired domain name and see if it’s available. If you buy one domain at a time for a one year period it will cost around 10 a year (you can get discounts if you buy in bulk or if you register a name for more than one year at a time).

Having your own domain name is very important to your success online, picking the right domain is also crucial. Before you start your domain name search, remember to keep these tips in mind.

While this is a fairly easy concept there is, of course, a little more to it. The first thing you want to do is purchase a desirable domain name. It’s unlikely that if you buy the domain name ‘Jim Smith’ you’re going to get many people who would want to pay for it later.

When deciding on the domain name you want to buy you should do some research to find a hot niche that has a lot of interest in it. It could be anything from cat toys to coffee makers. When you find a niche that not only has a lot of traffic but where people are actually making purchases then you need to do some keyword research to determine which specific words and phrases people are using when they search for products in that niche.

For example, if your niche is cat toys you will need a list of words and phrases that people are searching for… a lot. So after your keyword research you might find that one phrase that has a lot of searches is: catnip cat toys. The next thing you have to do is to go to one of the online domain name sellers such as GoDaddy.com or DomainCheapsters.com and see if you can get that exact phrase as a domain name. If you can get CatnipCatToys.com then you are well on your way, you know that your domain name will get a lot of free traffic because it is a popular keyword phrase that gets a lot of traffic.

Once you’ve got your domain name, you need to put up a website. This can be a simple blog style. Add some content and sit back and wait, or you can be a little more proactive and help your site grow more quickly by adding more content more frequently and also by doing some article marketing to get even more traffic. It’s up to you which way you choose to go, one will be easier but take longer and the other will be harder but get results more quickly.

Now that you’ve got a desirable domain name in a popular niche and your site is getting traffic, you can sell it and (hopefully) make a profit. There are several sites online that will walk you through the steps and list your site for sale, one of the best known is Flippa.com. It costs around 20 to list your site for sale, and of course, there is no guarantee that it will sell but if you’ve followed these steps you’ve got a good chance of selling your site and making several hundred dollars and it all starts with picking the right domain name for sale.

Here are 5 basic points you need to consider and keep in mind when you first start out:

1. What kind of video should you make? How best to present the information to your target audience? For example, if you are in the internet marketing niche and you’re trying to teach people how to do something online, generally the best way to make that type of video is by using some sort of software (easily available online, some of it is free) that will take shots of your actual computer screen and then put those shots together, along with your narration, into a video.

If you are trying to demonstrate something offline you’ll need a video camera and possibly a tripod. You can get a really good camera and tripod for a few hundred dollars.

No matter which type of video you are making you will also need a quality microphone so anyone watching your video can actually hear what you’re saying. Again, this won’t cost a lot, usually between around 35 and 50.

2. Make out an outline. Do not waste your customers time by hemming and hawing your way through your video, it’s obnoxious. No one expects a professional actor but you should sound casual and like you know what you’re talking about. If you make a mistake, go back and do it again.

3. Keep the video short and to the point, generally about 3 -5 minutes is plenty. Remember, you are just giving them a ‘snippet’ you’re not telling them everything. You’re just trying to give them something of value so they learn to trust you so they eventually buy from you. Keep some things to yourself at this point.

4. Pick out great well targeted keywords that are related to your niche market. It’s best to have 3 -5 keywords that get high monthly searches and low competition.

5. Submit your videos to video directories. Most everyone has heard of YouTube but there are many others online where you can submit your quality videos. Just do a search online to get a list. When you submit your videos make sure that you use the keywords you found in step 4 when writing out the title, tags and description. That will help your video get seen, hopefully a lot, and that will drive traffic to your website.

No need to get overwhelmed, or over think anything. Out of all the video marketing articles online, I hope this one will help clear up any confusion. The bottom line is just do it. As with anything, the more you do it the more tricks and tactics you’ll learn to make your efforts better and better all the time.

There are pros and cons of all methods to creating squeeze pages. When you are just starting out, perhaps with your first squeeze page, then it’s not a bad idea to invest in some sort of automation, or to hire someone to help you. Evaluate your time and what you have to spend. If you do have a little bit of money to invest, a squeeze page is definitely something worth that investment. This is what you will use to generate a list of customers and potential customers, as well as to filter people into whatever it is you are selling.

The investment in squeeze page software can range from no cost at all to a relatively small amount which can be paid just once or monthly, depending on the software. Squeezepages.com offers you software for a one-time 97.00 payment for a multi-site personal use license. OptInEase is a video-specialty-squeeze page generator that is not actually a software that you download onto your desktop, but rather, you can do everything within your browser. Squeeze-Page-Software is another one that costs 47. 10 Minute squeeze Pages is free for the first 15 days, and then costs 17 dollars per month thereafter. The SuperSqueezPageGenerator is 67 for lifetime membership. At IMFreesoftware.com(aff) the software is as the name implies completely free of charge for the squeeze page builder and you have several other software tools to choose from including free membership to Software Bronze Club.

If you are just starting out, having a good automated software can make a big difference in your conversions since automated squeeze pages will follow the rules of what is most effective, so you don’t need to figure these out for yourself by testing and tracking. In addition, with a good software you don’t have to build pages one at a time–you can create multiple pages almost at the same time.

However, it’s important to keep in mind that many squeeze page software programs don’t allow you too much customization. Again, this may not be as important in the beginning, but as you move on, you will want to make your squeeze pages stand out from the rest, and may want to hire a proven graphic artist. And, you’ll also want to keep up with the most up-to-date squeeze page designs that convert well.

The one underlying thing to keep in mind whenever you use video to market a product or service is that the quality of the video will go a long way in determining what kind of results you get. A poorly made, hard to see or hear video won’t do much to make you look like a knowledgeable expert in your niche. No one expects Academy Award caliber videos, but they must be well laid out and visually appealing.

For most marketing videos the K.I.S.S. acronym works extremely well: Keep It Simple Stupid. Don’t go over the top with flashy graphics or loud music. It’s much better to just deliver a quality video that will help your target audience handle some problem or issue in the shortest amount of time possible. That’s really all they want, someone who can show them how to do the one thing they desperately want to know how to do.

It could be to potty train their Pitbull, start seedlings, or just learn how to make big bucks online. Whatever it is, if you can show them in easy to follow steps, on video, how they can do it, they’ll be your friend forever.

Don’t go hog wild and invest thousands in high tech gear to record your videos. Instead a few hundred dollars, some screen capture software and or a video camera, a tripod (optional) and a decent microphone is really all you need.

Once you’ve assembled the tools you need to come up with a compelling video. Again, pinpoint the one issue the people in your niche face and then teach them a way to overcome that issue.

Don’t get tongue tied or stammer throughout the video either. Make an outline of the major points you want to cover so you don’t get distracted and jump from one point to another. Don’t talk too fast or too slow. You have to make sure that you’re viewers can not only understand you but hopefully that they’ll come to trust and like you too.

That’s the huge benefit on using video online, it greatly increases the personalization of the otherwise impersonal internet. It allows you to connect with people on a much deeper level and if you use that properly, it can make a huge difference in your business.

Being able to allow your visitors to hear your voice and see your face while you give them help with a problem they’re having is taking social media marketing video to a whole new level. Remember, it takes an average of 7 contacts with people before they feel comfortable enough with you to make a purchase, by allowing people to really get to ‘know’ you through video, you can get the most out of those 7 contacts and maybe even speed up the process.

Many new online marketers will make a very fatal error, they think that as long as they are getting a lot of traffic to their site then they will make money. The thing they overlook is the quality of the traffic. For example, if you are selling books about birds you don’t want people who couldn’t care less about birds visiting your website. If they don’t have an interest in birds they aren’t going to buy your product, period. It doesn’t matter how great your product is, or how great your website is or all the pretty pictures you have on your site…if they don’t care about birds they aren’t going to buy your product.

So, not all traffic is good traffic. By using the proper search marketing keywords strategy you can target your traffic so only those people who are actively looking for information on birds will click on your link and see your site. If you have a keyword like: bird watching books for sale and you use that in your website articles, as well as some article marketing efforts, you can be sure that the visitors you get to your site are highly interested not only in birds but also in buying a book about birds. The odds of you making a sale have just gone up significantly!

By targeting the right keywords you can target the right customers. Simply by doing some keyword research and finding very specific keywords that have a lot of high monthly searches with low competition and then incorporating those keywords into your blog posts and articles, you will be focusing your marketing efforts on those people who are truly interested in buying your product or services as opposed to those that have absolutely no interest at all.

If you want to get a little more in depth you can also include keywords in the tags of your website to help the search engines find you and give you a higher ranking. This isn’t hard to do especially if you’re using a blog format for your website. Just ask around any internet marketing forum and you can find someone who can walk you through the process (it’s not hard but I don’t really have enough room in this article to explain the concept).

Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, learn all you can about the way the search engines work and find the best way to work within that system so you can get a ton of highly targeted traffic. The first thing you’ll need to do is to identify search marketing keywords that have a high number of monthly searches and then integrate those words into your online posts, articles, and website structure.

Keywords are not the entire story though, start there and find good or even great keywords then create your website and optimize it for the search engines then submit it. If you have found good keywords to use then your website will be ranked higher on the search results page so when someone types that keyword into the search bar they will see your website, click through and hopefully make a purchase.

Sounds easy, right? Well, if you try to do this all on your own, you will soon find yourself lost and frustrated then you will probably give up. So, how do you get the right keywords to use for your search engine optimization? Use a good keyword marketing tool. You will save mounds of time and energy that you need to put to doing other things to optimize your website.

A good keyword tool will give you a list of keywords to choose from, will help you decide which keywords are unused or seldom used and which ones will work. Other aspects of keyword research that a good keyword tool will help you with are how many other websites will you be competing with if you choose this or that keyword, SEO, or search engine optimization, and page rank.

Stay away from keywords that have too much competition. Even if they sound like a good fit, they will do you absolutely no good and may even keep you from getting ranked higher on the search engines. Make sure you choose keywords that describe your business exactly. If you can’t do that in one word, a better option may be a long-tail keyword. Long-tail keywords may narrow down the competition and if the long-tail keyword you choose has a high number of searches then you are probably going to be ranked high in the search engines.

Page rank will help you track what your page is doing on that search engine. This is one way to track how well your site is doing and if it stays ranked high on the search engine. If, for some reason, it does not stay ranked high, then you need to find better keywords and re-optimize your website.

Research is the best way to find what you are looking for. With so many tools out there you are bound to find the one to suit your needs the best. Find one that has it all or maybe two or three that, when used together, give you all you need. However you go about it, do not waste your valuable time trying to find keywords that will work on your own, use a keyword marketing tool.

Just like in the ‘real world’ you can make money flipping websites. People do it all the time. If you want to profit from someone else’s work, you only have to look as far as the nearest website auction site such as GoDaddy.com or Flippa.com. There you will find a list of websites that someone else has taken the time to build and grow and hopefully has a steady stream of traffic and has made money from it.

Now you may ask yourself, if this person is making money with their site why would they sell it? The reason it that this is the way a lot of people actually make money online, they make more from selling the site than they would by keeping it. Or, they just don’t want to hold on to a particular site, or they want to make some quick cash. If you do your due diligence you can pick up a great niche site, with decent traffic and maybe even some good links for very little money. And the best part is that it is turn key. You don’t have to do much since it’s already set up and profitable.

It’s easy to get caught up in the moment and overpay for a site, but if you do that than it will take you longer to be profitable, or you might just get taken completely and never make money from a certain site. To be sure you don’t do this it’s important that you verify all income claims the person is making about their site. At a minimum they should provide you with screen shots showing their traffic counts, and their monetization efforts.

Many of the bigger flipping sites will have fairly strict guidelines that need to be followed by anyone who is listing a website for sale, these can help protect you but ultimately you are responsible for protecting yourself.

Take some time to do your own research into the niche that the website is centered around. How many products are for sale in this niche? Go to Amazon.com and do a search for the precise niche items to see how popular they are. Check to see how many customer reviews each product has (this will give you an idea of how passionate the people in this niche are about the product, more reviews typically means more passion, and more sales).

Go to the website yourself, look around. What is your first reaction to the site? All of these things will help protect you from making a bad purchase. Most sites that sell websites will have fairly extensive training materials to walk you through the process, I highly recommend that you take some time to check them out first, that is step one when trying to find great, profitable domains for sale.