Is Freelancing Right For You?
There are plenty of ways to make money online. Marketing products is not the only way, though it seems to be the most popular. However, it is far from the easiest. Believe it or not, there are much easier ways to make a buck on the Internet. Freelancing is one of them. The question is this. Is freelancing right for you? Well, that's the question that we're going to try to answer in this article. Ultimately, only you can decide if freelancing is something that you want to get into. Hopefully, this article will help you make that decision.
First of all, what exactly is freelancing? Well, simply put, freelancing is where you offer your services for a fee. These services can cover a wide range of things such as article writing, graphic design and programming, just to name a few. If there is a skill out there, then more likely than not, there is a demand for that skill. That is how freelancers earn their keep. But, let's get back to the original question. Is freelancing right for you?
Well, first things first...you need a skill. If you don't have one, then obviously freelancing is not an option...at least not yet. See, you can always learn a skill. There are plenty of courses online and even free tutorials where you can learn just about anything. How long it takes you to master that skill will depend on your natural talent and how much time you put into it.
But deciding on whether or not freelancing is right for you is more than just figuring out whether or not you have a skill that is marketable. There are many people who have marketable skills who are just not cut out for freelancing. But why is that? Why is it that some people just can't hack being a freelancer?
Well, for one thing, being a freelancer takes a lot of self discipline. Unlike working a job, there is nobody to drag your butt out of bed in the morning. You have to force yourself to get to that computer and do your work. If you don't work, you don't get paid. It's that simple.
And then of course there is the fact that there are no guarantees that you're going to get assignments. If you're looking for a guaranteed paycheck, such as with a regular job, you've got a long wait. Just like with marketing a product, you have to market. Only this time, you're marketing yourself. And let me tell you, there is a lot of competition. Therefore, you have to be very good at marketing yourself. You have to give prospects a good reason to use you instead of somebody else.
In a sense, freelancing is a job...without the security of knowing you're going to get paid just by showing up. So before you decide to get into freelancing, make sure you're ready for the challenges ahead of you.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Seven Steps to Internet Marketing Success
I am often asked what it takes to make a successful
business on the Internet. Truthfully, there is no single
answer: it takes dedication, patience, and practice.
However, there are some common aspects to Internet
marketing that every entrepreneur should be focussing on.
Before I start however, it is worth considering how
Internet Marketing is not so different from the offline
businesses. Did the owners companies like BP or WalMart
start out with a unique idea that took the world by storm?
Not a chance. They looked at the market and said "I can
build a better company".
Similarly, the chances are that your core business is
probably not unique - but by doing things better than your
competition, you increase your market share and your
business blossoms. Providing there is enough demand for
your what you offer, the possibilities for the home
business owner are endless.
Step 1 - Know your Customer!
You will get absolutely nowhere without identifying who
your market is made up of. Who are you trying to sell to?
What readership are you trying to attract? It makes no
sense to even start a business without working out who your
customer is in the first place. Where would you place your
marketing? What would it say? You have to know the answers
to these questions before you start advertising. You need
to get in the mindset of your customers - try to work out
what they want to hear. If you can match your advertising
to the way your customer thinks, this will dramatically
increase your conversion rate.
In order to track where your visitors are coming from, you
will need some form of analytics. Your system may include a
complete analytics package. If not then you could do worse
than Google Analytics (which is free) or one of the
specialist services such as Statcounter. In either case,
you would be advised to set up tracking codes that then
enable you to identify the source of your traffic. Once you
know how your visitors found you, by establishing what they
do once they reach your site (leave, sign up to a
newsletter, purchase) you can identify which source of
visitors are the most valuable to you.
Step 2 - Build a List
So, you've identified your target clients. Excellent! You
are already ahead of 90% of your competition! Now, no
matter which form of advertising you decide upon, one of
your primary goals should be to build a list of clients.
This is typically acheived in the form of an opt-in email
address database. Why do you think all of the most
successful companies do everything they can to get you to
sign up to email updates from them? They know, as you will
learn, that it is approximately ten times cheaper to sell
to an existing contact than to obtain new contacts.
You should use your list wisely though. No-one likes being
spammed. So every contact you have with your clients should
be targetted to provide as much value to the client as
possible whilst retaining your primary goal to move a sale
forward. Research has shown that the average customer
buys/accepts your offer after seeing your message 7 times.
So you are going to need to leverage this list to make sure
that the client buys into your offering over time.
Online Marketeers also know the benefit of Affiliate
programs. These are schemes where you agree to sell a
complimentary product in return for a commission from the
providing company. Now even with the greatest product, your
offering won't appeal to everyone you come into contact
with. This does not stop you suggesting other products or
services that may be of interest. This way you get to make
money off people who don't buy your primary product or
service.
Step 3 - Play the Numbers Game
I've been involved in sales and marketing for over 15
years, and one of the first lessons I ever learned was a
simple concept of "Don't Eat your Pipeline". You may wonder
what this means, but the message is simple. Sales is a game
of numbers. The more interested people you get, or leads,
the more sales you will get. Basic huh? But it always
amazes me how many businesses fail at this level.
Selling is a funnel process. You have to start by getting
your message out to as many people as possible. If you have
got your marketing message right, this will result in
leads, that go in the top of the funnel - and believe me
you need as many of these as you can get. Some of these
leads will turn into prospects. That is, those who have an
interest in what you have to offer, and the means to take
advantage of it. If you have a valuable product or service,
you will get sales (or conversions).
Step 4 - Free is Better than Paid
This once again seems like I am stating the obvious. Why
would you buy something if you can get the same thing for
free? Well the difference often is time and convenience.
Most people will turn to paid advertising initially to get
their message out to the world, and don't get me wrong,
there is absolutely an essential mix to be had where paid
advertising does indeed feature. However, the web has grown
up and there are so many opportunities out there to get
high quality visitors without paying for every one.
You will have heard of SEO or Search Engine Optimisation,
which is the art of tailoring your online presence to be
successfully pickup up by the major search engines. This
can be vey powerful, and should be part of your stratagy,
but I don't want to go into this today. SEO is the subject
of countless blogs and sites in their own right to do
justice in a short article.
My advice would be to take advantage of what is
collectively known as Web 2.0 resources. These are sites
that are specifically set up to connect people and ideas.
You should look at writing and maintaining your own blog
which gives you all the opportunity in the world to put
your thoughts and ideas across to your clients. Social
Networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter are
fantastic for gathering interested clients as they are read
by 100s of millions of people every day. This ranks the
sites highly with the search engines, increasing your
chance of getting free hits to your site. I will be posting
future articles dedicated to Web 2.0 as this area is
rapidly growing and will become increasingly important to
your online success.
Step 5 - Test everything!
How do you know which marketing activities are proving
valuable? The answer? Check! Unless you constantly are
using reports to assess the effectiviness of your
activities, how will you know what to reproduce and what to
drop? This is where you need to introduce the concept of
split-testing.
Split-testing refers to when you test two variations of
something to identify which works best. This could be two
similar advertising campaigns where the specific wording is
slightly different, or perhaps the page you point your
visitors at (landing page) to see how each affects the
conversion rate.
By working out over time what is effective, you know where
to spend your time and money continuing to further refining
the process.
Step 6 - Have Something to Sell!!!
Sounds obvious eh? Of course you have something to sell! I
am continually astounded at people who sign up to Internet
Marketing schemes whose whole purpose is just to get more
people involved. Where is the product? Where is the value
you are providing to your client?
Without value, those leads you sweated over getting earlier
will drift away as there is nothing to keep their
attention. Whatever you are offering, make sure that there
is always something valuable for them to buy into, and that
there is an upgrade path for further sales as your
relationship with your client develops.
Step 7 - Don't Stop!
Very rarely will you hit on anything that delivers huge
profits without having to work for it. Even if you have a
fantastic product, with amazing profits, you will sell
nothing without continued marketing effort. This is
imperative to a sustainable business. The more you put into
the business, the more you will get out of it.
If something doesn't work and ends up costing you time
and/or money what should you do? Give up? Absolutely NOT!
Change what you are doing? Possibly (so long as you know
what was wrong and where to start fixing it). You may find
however that you are doing the right things and you just
need time to convince your leads that you are in it for the
long term. Remember - most customers will need 7 attempts
to get them to buy from you. You can't do this if you don't
allow enough time for the process to complete.
About the Author:
Matt Lawless is an Internet Entrepreneur based in the UK.
With 15 years sales and marketing experience, his passion
is helping anyone excel online.
Gor more information go to http://www.mattlawless.com .
Follow him on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mattlawless
I am often asked what it takes to make a successful
business on the Internet. Truthfully, there is no single
answer: it takes dedication, patience, and practice.
However, there are some common aspects to Internet
marketing that every entrepreneur should be focussing on.
Before I start however, it is worth considering how
Internet Marketing is not so different from the offline
businesses. Did the owners companies like BP or WalMart
start out with a unique idea that took the world by storm?
Not a chance. They looked at the market and said "I can
build a better company".
Similarly, the chances are that your core business is
probably not unique - but by doing things better than your
competition, you increase your market share and your
business blossoms. Providing there is enough demand for
your what you offer, the possibilities for the home
business owner are endless.
Step 1 - Know your Customer!
You will get absolutely nowhere without identifying who
your market is made up of. Who are you trying to sell to?
What readership are you trying to attract? It makes no
sense to even start a business without working out who your
customer is in the first place. Where would you place your
marketing? What would it say? You have to know the answers
to these questions before you start advertising. You need
to get in the mindset of your customers - try to work out
what they want to hear. If you can match your advertising
to the way your customer thinks, this will dramatically
increase your conversion rate.
In order to track where your visitors are coming from, you
will need some form of analytics. Your system may include a
complete analytics package. If not then you could do worse
than Google Analytics (which is free) or one of the
specialist services such as Statcounter. In either case,
you would be advised to set up tracking codes that then
enable you to identify the source of your traffic. Once you
know how your visitors found you, by establishing what they
do once they reach your site (leave, sign up to a
newsletter, purchase) you can identify which source of
visitors are the most valuable to you.
Step 2 - Build a List
So, you've identified your target clients. Excellent! You
are already ahead of 90% of your competition! Now, no
matter which form of advertising you decide upon, one of
your primary goals should be to build a list of clients.
This is typically acheived in the form of an opt-in email
address database. Why do you think all of the most
successful companies do everything they can to get you to
sign up to email updates from them? They know, as you will
learn, that it is approximately ten times cheaper to sell
to an existing contact than to obtain new contacts.
You should use your list wisely though. No-one likes being
spammed. So every contact you have with your clients should
be targetted to provide as much value to the client as
possible whilst retaining your primary goal to move a sale
forward. Research has shown that the average customer
buys/accepts your offer after seeing your message 7 times.
So you are going to need to leverage this list to make sure
that the client buys into your offering over time.
Online Marketeers also know the benefit of Affiliate
programs. These are schemes where you agree to sell a
complimentary product in return for a commission from the
providing company. Now even with the greatest product, your
offering won't appeal to everyone you come into contact
with. This does not stop you suggesting other products or
services that may be of interest. This way you get to make
money off people who don't buy your primary product or
service.
Step 3 - Play the Numbers Game
I've been involved in sales and marketing for over 15
years, and one of the first lessons I ever learned was a
simple concept of "Don't Eat your Pipeline". You may wonder
what this means, but the message is simple. Sales is a game
of numbers. The more interested people you get, or leads,
the more sales you will get. Basic huh? But it always
amazes me how many businesses fail at this level.
Selling is a funnel process. You have to start by getting
your message out to as many people as possible. If you have
got your marketing message right, this will result in
leads, that go in the top of the funnel - and believe me
you need as many of these as you can get. Some of these
leads will turn into prospects. That is, those who have an
interest in what you have to offer, and the means to take
advantage of it. If you have a valuable product or service,
you will get sales (or conversions).
Step 4 - Free is Better than Paid
This once again seems like I am stating the obvious. Why
would you buy something if you can get the same thing for
free? Well the difference often is time and convenience.
Most people will turn to paid advertising initially to get
their message out to the world, and don't get me wrong,
there is absolutely an essential mix to be had where paid
advertising does indeed feature. However, the web has grown
up and there are so many opportunities out there to get
high quality visitors without paying for every one.
You will have heard of SEO or Search Engine Optimisation,
which is the art of tailoring your online presence to be
successfully pickup up by the major search engines. This
can be vey powerful, and should be part of your stratagy,
but I don't want to go into this today. SEO is the subject
of countless blogs and sites in their own right to do
justice in a short article.
My advice would be to take advantage of what is
collectively known as Web 2.0 resources. These are sites
that are specifically set up to connect people and ideas.
You should look at writing and maintaining your own blog
which gives you all the opportunity in the world to put
your thoughts and ideas across to your clients. Social
Networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter are
fantastic for gathering interested clients as they are read
by 100s of millions of people every day. This ranks the
sites highly with the search engines, increasing your
chance of getting free hits to your site. I will be posting
future articles dedicated to Web 2.0 as this area is
rapidly growing and will become increasingly important to
your online success.
Step 5 - Test everything!
How do you know which marketing activities are proving
valuable? The answer? Check! Unless you constantly are
using reports to assess the effectiviness of your
activities, how will you know what to reproduce and what to
drop? This is where you need to introduce the concept of
split-testing.
Split-testing refers to when you test two variations of
something to identify which works best. This could be two
similar advertising campaigns where the specific wording is
slightly different, or perhaps the page you point your
visitors at (landing page) to see how each affects the
conversion rate.
By working out over time what is effective, you know where
to spend your time and money continuing to further refining
the process.
Step 6 - Have Something to Sell!!!
Sounds obvious eh? Of course you have something to sell! I
am continually astounded at people who sign up to Internet
Marketing schemes whose whole purpose is just to get more
people involved. Where is the product? Where is the value
you are providing to your client?
Without value, those leads you sweated over getting earlier
will drift away as there is nothing to keep their
attention. Whatever you are offering, make sure that there
is always something valuable for them to buy into, and that
there is an upgrade path for further sales as your
relationship with your client develops.
Step 7 - Don't Stop!
Very rarely will you hit on anything that delivers huge
profits without having to work for it. Even if you have a
fantastic product, with amazing profits, you will sell
nothing without continued marketing effort. This is
imperative to a sustainable business. The more you put into
the business, the more you will get out of it.
If something doesn't work and ends up costing you time
and/or money what should you do? Give up? Absolutely NOT!
Change what you are doing? Possibly (so long as you know
what was wrong and where to start fixing it). You may find
however that you are doing the right things and you just
need time to convince your leads that you are in it for the
long term. Remember - most customers will need 7 attempts
to get them to buy from you. You can't do this if you don't
allow enough time for the process to complete.
About the Author:
Matt Lawless is an Internet Entrepreneur based in the UK.
With 15 years sales and marketing experience, his passion
is helping anyone excel online.
Gor more information go to http://www.mattlawless.com .
Follow him on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mattlawless
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
How to Generate More Backlinks
Backlinks play an essential part to any website. Backlinks are links that are directed to your website from other websites, blogs or forums.
These backlinks will not only generate traffic to your site by giving web surfers an active link to get to your site, they will also increase your page rank. Page rank is Google’s way of measuring the value and relevancy of your website.
You will achieve a higher page rank based on the amount of inbound links coming to your site. So therefore, the more links that come in, the higher page rank you will receive. With a higher page rank, you will attract more websites willing to link with you.
So, as you can see, by increasing the backlinks to your site, you will be driving up the number of visitors to your website as well as attract more websites willing to link with you.
Here are a few ways you can increase your number of backlinks:
1. Visitors to your site could very well have their own website or blog. Ask them to link with you. You’ll be amazed at how well this works, as long as your site offers good content that is useful and informative.
2. Create a “Link to Us” page to make it easier for others to link to you. Provide the html code for them to put on their site so all they have to do is cut and paste. The easier you make it for them, the more likely they are to exchange links.
3. Write some articles and submit them to various article directories. In exchange, you will receive a link back to your site. This is usually done through your Resource Box that will be submitted with your article.
4. Go to Link Directories and submit your link. There were no search engines back in the early days of the Internet. Most people found what they were looking for by searching through directories. These directories were broken down into categories, making it easier for the searcher. Today, most people prefer to use search engines to find what they are looking for, but that does not mean that directories are dead. There are people that still use them and the links will still count towards your page rank. Do a search for Link Directories for a list of directories where you can submit your site to.
5. When you agree to link to a website in exchange for that website linking back to you, is called a reciprocal link. As with directories, many website owners have all but given up on reciprocal linking. They argue that the search engines have devalued reciprocal links to the point where they’re not worth the time it takes to obtain them. On the other hand, there are others who still have great success with this method. The key is to not just link to anyone for the sake of linking. Link to sites that are truly useful and relevant to your visitors.
When done right, reciprocal linking will work for everyone and both websites will receive an increase in traffic.
Backlinks do take some time to set up, but once done, are a great way to bring traffic to your site.
Lori Gorman is the owner/webmaster of My E-biz Place Visit for all the up to date work at home offers. While there, sign up for a free newsletter subscription to bring hot new offers and tips right to your mailbox.
Backlinks play an essential part to any website. Backlinks are links that are directed to your website from other websites, blogs or forums.
These backlinks will not only generate traffic to your site by giving web surfers an active link to get to your site, they will also increase your page rank. Page rank is Google’s way of measuring the value and relevancy of your website.
You will achieve a higher page rank based on the amount of inbound links coming to your site. So therefore, the more links that come in, the higher page rank you will receive. With a higher page rank, you will attract more websites willing to link with you.
So, as you can see, by increasing the backlinks to your site, you will be driving up the number of visitors to your website as well as attract more websites willing to link with you.
Here are a few ways you can increase your number of backlinks:
1. Visitors to your site could very well have their own website or blog. Ask them to link with you. You’ll be amazed at how well this works, as long as your site offers good content that is useful and informative.
2. Create a “Link to Us” page to make it easier for others to link to you. Provide the html code for them to put on their site so all they have to do is cut and paste. The easier you make it for them, the more likely they are to exchange links.
3. Write some articles and submit them to various article directories. In exchange, you will receive a link back to your site. This is usually done through your Resource Box that will be submitted with your article.
4. Go to Link Directories and submit your link. There were no search engines back in the early days of the Internet. Most people found what they were looking for by searching through directories. These directories were broken down into categories, making it easier for the searcher. Today, most people prefer to use search engines to find what they are looking for, but that does not mean that directories are dead. There are people that still use them and the links will still count towards your page rank. Do a search for Link Directories for a list of directories where you can submit your site to.
5. When you agree to link to a website in exchange for that website linking back to you, is called a reciprocal link. As with directories, many website owners have all but given up on reciprocal linking. They argue that the search engines have devalued reciprocal links to the point where they’re not worth the time it takes to obtain them. On the other hand, there are others who still have great success with this method. The key is to not just link to anyone for the sake of linking. Link to sites that are truly useful and relevant to your visitors.
When done right, reciprocal linking will work for everyone and both websites will receive an increase in traffic.
Backlinks do take some time to set up, but once done, are a great way to bring traffic to your site.
Lori Gorman is the owner/webmaster of My E-biz Place Visit for all the up to date work at home offers. While there, sign up for a free newsletter subscription to bring hot new offers and tips right to your mailbox.
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