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.

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

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.

The Two Things You Need To Know About Writing Articles and Monetizing Them
By: B Hopkins

Article writing serves many purposes for website owners and
Internet marketers. It is a powerful way to market your
business, and is also a powerful way to earn income
directly from the article content itself. When you want to
monetize your articles, you will need to understand how to
use your articles to create the greatest benefit from them.

Some of the methods in which you can monetize your articles
include: - Adsense - Promoting your own products and
services - Promoting affiliate products and services -
Long-term revenue - Viral revenue

There are other ways to get income by promoting your
products and services, but the ones listed above are some
of the more common ways you can earn an income through
writing articles.

The first thing you need to know is the purpose in which
you are writing your articles. Are you writing them to
promote a product or service, or are you writing them to
brand yourself as an expert in your field? Each way will
require you to write your articles differently. If you are
writing your articles for adsense, then you will want to
write many informative, how-to articles that contain many
of the keyword phrases used by your target audience. Your
articles should talk about the products and services that
are found on your site. The purpose of the article is to
draw the targeted adsense ads that will be served on your
website.

If you are writing and marketing articles to promote
affiliate products, then your article should get the reader
to go to the affiliate site, and also buy something as
well. If you require a multi-step process to sell the
affiliate product or service, then it would be better to
use the article to send the reader to a lead capture page
to get the reader's email so you can market to them through
an auto responder series. This is where you can put other
articles that you have written and send the reader one
article per week.

The second thing that you need to know when writing
articles and monetizing them is to write the articles in
such a way that they receive a lot of traffic in some form
or another. Your articles won't do much good if no one can
find them, so it is important that they are easily found on
the Internet. Your articles can be found through article
directories, individual websites, other publisher's
newsletters, eBooks among a host of other ways. The more
ways you make use of, the better the chance your article
will get seen by your target market. There are many
sources out there today that contain a list of different
places where you can publish your article. Once you have a
list of places, you want to narrow it down to the top 5 to
10 places to submit your articles. Your criteria should be
based upon how much traffic is going to the website where
you want to publish your articles, and if your target
market is willing to purchase your product or service.
Once you have the answer to these questions, you will be
able to write powerful articles that have a good response
rate.

When you are writing articles to monetize them, it is
crucial that you have a good strategy for writing,
marketing and publishing them. If you don't, you will end
up going through a lot of work over nothing. The next step
is to look for ways of earning a long-term income for your
article writing efforts.

About the Author:

If you still want tips on how to write articles and
monetize them discover the secrets of Article Cash at:
http://resourceshosting.com/articlecash
To learn more about how to write articles and market them
go to:
http://resourceshosting.com/turnwords

Finding Legitimate Internet Home Business Opportunities

There's an abundance of home business opportunities on the internet for you to choose from. The problem is knowing which internet home business opportunities are legitimate, which ones are borderline, and which ones are outright scams. So, how do you know? That is what I am going to answer in this article.

One thing you can do is go to some of the top home business websites on the internet and see what opportunities they are recommending. Be careful when doing this though because most of them are promoting these internet home businesses as affiliates, so their opinions can be very biased. However, if there's an opportunity that most of these websites are commonly promoting there's a strong chance it's a good one. Or if the owner is promoting many home business opportunities you can email them and ask which one they recommend the most.

You can also go to home business forums and ask the members what they think about an opportunity you want to get some feedback on. It's best to ask in a few different forums and see what the overall consensus is among the members. If most of them have positive things to say about it then it's probably a legitimate internet home business opportunity. If you are getting mostly negative reviews or if it's pretty much neutral then move on to another opportunity.

Another way to see what other people think about a home business opportunity is to go to Google and do a search for the name of the opportunity plus review. Let's say the program you are looking into is named "Successful Home Business Future Team" as an example. So you would go to Google and search for "Successful Home Business Future Team Review" or "Successful Home Business Future Team" +Review. This will give you many reviews of what other people have said about the opportunity. Again be careful here because many of these reviews will be biased opinions of people who are affiliates of the program. Find some that seem to be unbiased and see what they say.

One more great way to find legitimate internet home business opportunities is to seek out a few very knowledgeable people who have been in the industry for a long time and get to know them. After a while you will know if they are helpful and honest. If they are you can always ask their opinions on any home business opportunity you find.

Those are four of the best ways to find out if an internet home business opportunity is legitimate or not. You can't go around crying if you happen to get scammed because you didn't do your homework on an opportunity before getting involved with it! There are enough legitimate internet home business opportunities out there that you don't have to take a shot in the dark on one just because it was the first one you came across.

About the author:

Trent Brownrigg is a successful internet marketer, blogger, and home business mentor. His passion is teaching people how to make money online. He has been doing this for a long time and can teach you everything you need to know about home business. Visit his site http://www.work-at-home-jobs-iowa.com for more information.

The Fastest Way to Ezine Advertising

An ezine is an online newsletter. They are used to share news, updates and promotions. They are a great way for webmasters to generate traffic to their site and keep in touch with their visitors.

Generating traffic to your site through an ezine is not that complicated. Most, if not all, ezines accept third party advertising. What that means is Joe Smith has an ezine relating to car maintenance. You are selling a new car polish that will protect the finish of your car. You place an ad in Joe Smith’s car maintenance ezine. This will also help Joe (the ezine owner) to offset the cost of operating his ezine as well as give him an additional source of income.

You can choose to place an ad for your website, product or service in the ezine. You can place different ads in different ezines. If this is done right, you will generate loads of traffic to your site.

You should place your ads in ezines that are related toward your specific niche. Be as specific as you can to narrow the possibilities. To use the above example, let’s say your car polish is used on vintage cars to restore their original color and shine. Would you then place your ad in an ezine for the new 2009 sports car or an ezine relating to car restoration? By narrowing your target audience, you will get the most for your money.

Try browsing sites in your niche to see which ones run an ezine. You can also do a search on Google. Try searching for: “your keyword + ezine” (ex: “car restoration+ ezine”). Once you have a list of possible sites, you can start to narrow it down to find the most targeted one as well as to compare prices and the number of subscribers.

There are various pricing options for these ads. Some things to take into consideration might depend on the niche or the number of subscribers. There are also different prices based on where your ad is placed.

Most ezines will have several options on where to place your ad. They may have one at the top, another in the middle and then when down at the bottom.
The best (and most expensive) is the solo ad. As the name implies, this is “one” ad. This will be the only ad the readers will see. This means great exposure for you. Because of this, you want to create an effective ad.

One way to do this is to subscribe to the ezine yourself and read through a few issues to get a feel of its style of writing. Then you can construct an ad to reflect on that style and match the tone and message it is trying to convey. The words you choose for your ad will determine the success of your ad, so plan on taking some time to construct it.

One last thing, track your ads carefully. You will want to test and keep track of which ezines are getting you the best response. Play around with your ad and see what kind of results you get. Only by testing will you see which ads are bringing in the traffic and which ads are wasting your time and money.

How To Write Articles That Will Drive Traffic Back To Your Website

When people learn about the powerful web-wide exposure that
article marketing can bring for a website, they sometimes
mistakenly assume that they need to write the article as a
sales pitch to convince readers to go to their website.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

The way article marketing works is that your articles need
to be educational, rather than sales oriented.

The idea is to teach your reader's how to do something that
will benefit them, rather than to tell them why they should
do something to benefit you.

Keep in mind that when you submit articles, you need to
meet the needs of the publisher (who is looking for
educational articles that will serve his target readers),
and also the needs of your target market (who is looking
for helpful information).

Notice that neither of these two parties is looking for a
sales letter about your website! (The appropriate place to
talk about your website is in the author resource box that
sits below your articles.)

If you can't write about your own business, products or
website, what are you supposed to write about?

Whenever you write an article for article marketing you
want to:

a) Convey that you are an authority on your topic.

b) Convey that you're unbiased, that you simply want to
provide a useful article.

c) Always write about the topic of your website. Notice I
said "on the topic of your website" and not about your
website. Does your website sell gardening tools? Well, then
all of your articles would be about gardening.

d) Give the reader the information they need and also make
them more interested in your topic (by heightening the
reader's interest in your topic you make it more likely
that they will click through to your website when they read
your resource box).

How do you accomplish all of these objectives?

The trick is to take off your sales person hat and put on
your teacher hat. Being a teacher is a much more subtle
approach than being a sales person, and with article
marketing subtlety is key!

A good teacher creates a hunger in a student's heart for a
topic, and with a little creativity you can accomplish the
same effect with your articles.

Let's go back to the example of the person whose website
sells gardening tools. She can't write about her products
she's selling on her website--that would make her article
self-serving and a turn-off to publishers and readers.

So what should she write about? Here are some ideas for
article topics:

"How To Plant A Winter Garden"

"5 Guaranteed Ways to Produce a Bumper Crop of Veggies!"

"The Top 3 Health Benefits of Eating Vegetables You Grow In
Your Backyard"

"The Organic Advantage: Growing the Purest Food Possible"

You get the idea--all of these articles would be of
interest to this website owner's target market, make her
readers in the mood to start gardening (and then they will
need gardening tools!), and will also be welcomed by
publishers looking for educational articles.

It's a win-win-win situation!

True, it does take more creativity to craft an article that
is educational rather than sales oriented, but trust
me--you'll reap the rewards of your extra effort, because
well-written educational articles help you accomplish all
the goals you were hoping to meet when you started article
marketing in the first place:

1) You will build more links to your website, because your
articles will be more attractive to publishers. An increase
in links can lead to higher search engine ranking for your
keywords.

2) You will bring more exposure to your website, which in
turn will bring more targeted traffic. Each time your
article is picked up for publication, your author resource
box is included with a link back to your website. When
readers find your article useful, they will natually read
your resource box and will be more likely to click through
to your website (which brings you targeted traffic).

3) You will establish yourself as an expert in your niche.
Being regarded as an expert builds customer confidence and
increases the odds that your website will be chosen when a
customer decides to make a purchase.

This is perhaps a more subtle, more gentle approach than
you might have expected with article marketing, but this is
the approach that WORKS!

The payoff from all your hard work comes when a potential
customer reads your article and says,

"Now that article was helpful to me! Let me see if she has
any more useful info back at her website..."

And that is how you drive traffic back to your website with
article marketing--by being an expert in your niche and
creatively crafting articles that encourage your reader's
interest in your topic.

About the Author:

Steve Shaw develops systems and software to help you
succeed in your online business. For example, his article
distribution service at:
http://www.submityourarticle.com
YOUR
article to hundreds of web sites with the click of a button.

Everything You Need to Know to Create an Effective Email Signature

The power of an email signature has been terribly underestimated. An email signature is that short little blurb that is attached to all your outgoing emails. This can be set up through your email provider to be attached to your emails automatically. This will serve as a reminder to your readers of who you are and what you have to offer.

There are few people that actually take advantage of this powerful marketing tool. Those that do, tend to go about it the wrong way. This article will provide some tips on creating an effective email signature.

The first thing you want to include in your signature is a link back to your site. Please remember that not all email providers will allow active links. Formatting your link and using anchor text may backfire if your link shows up as plain text to your reader. Always include a simple link that can be cut and pasted into a browser.
Try not to make the same mistake of numerous other website owners by including only your name and link in your signature. You will run the risk of being boring and you won’t grab anyone’s attention.

Your email signature is like a small ad. You have to give your readers a reason to want to visit your site. Devote some time to designing your message. Perhaps a catchy phrase or slogan might do the trick. Another great eye catcher is to offer something free. A free report or E-Zine (an online form of a newsletter) is a great way to get people to your site. Coupons and discounts are a great way to generate traffic to your site as well. Don’t be afraid to add any of these things into your signature.

Remember, don’t get carried away. Many of us have several websites and we might feel inclined to mention them all in an email signature. This is going to overwhelm the reader and back fire on you. Try to keep it simple. You can try several different variations of your signature to see which ones are working best.
Another thought is to set up a special landing page just for your email signature. This will make tracking somewhat easier and you will be able to customize this page to fit the offer you may have advertised in your signature. From this special landing page, you can then send the visitor to any site you choose.

A good, well written email signature is a valuable piece of marketing you will want to incorporate into your advertising.

Lori Gorman is the owner/webmaster of My E-Biz Place and My E-Biz Place News and Info as well as a successful work at home mom. Visit her site for up to date, legitimate work from home opportunities. You can also find her on Twitter, MySpace, Facebook and ZenZuu.

HOW TO GENERATE TRAFFIC WITH E-COURSES
A great way to generate traffic to your site is through offering e-course. An e-course is a series of emails set up to go out automatically over a period of time. They will usually consist of a series of lessons or specific “how-to’s” to cover any topic you choose. For example, if your topic is working at home, you can create an e-course titled “10 Steps on How to Start a Home Business”. Then, you would set up your emails so the subscribers would get one a day, for 10 days. You would then write the emails, or lessons as follow, Step #1 Finding the Right Home Business, Step #2 Writing a Business Plan, Step #3 etc., etc., just for example.

Your subscribers will remain on your mailing list even after the 10 days (or whatever it is that you set up the e-course for), so you can continue to send out follow-ups and updates. Of course the subscriber will have the option to unsubscribe, but most often they do not, as long as you don’t abuse the follow-ups. Every email you send out is another opportunity to bring your subscriber back to your site. You already know they are interested in the information or service you provide because they signed up for your e-course.

The great thing about an e-course is that once you set up the email series, it runs by itself. Of course you can always go in and make any necessary changes. As long as you keep your e-course up to date, it will continue to bring you traffic for years to come.

Creating an e-course is easy. All you need is a topic and an auto-responder. Two of the more popular auto-responders are Get Response (which is what I use) and Aweber. You will definitely want to choose a well known and respected auto-responder. Your e-course is no good without a reliable auto-responder. Keep in mind that you want to use an auto-responder that uses a double opt-in subscription method. This will protect you from SPAM complaints because the subscriber will have to confirm they want to subscribe to your e-course before any emails are sent to them.

Once you get your email series in order and set up, you will want to “capture subscribers”. Your auto-responder company will provide you a code to place on your site. This will then put a box on your site for subscribers to put their names and emails to be added to your mailing list.

That’s all there is to it. Your e-course is set up, running on autopilot and you are free to work on other things. A professionally written, up to date, e-course can continue to bring you traffic for an indefinite period of time.

Back To School...Back To Work

Well, looks like summer is finally coming to an end. With our children going back to school, it's time to start thinking of getting back to work.

Over the summer I have to admit, I got a little lazy with my home business. I guess that's one of the benefits of working from home, you can set your own pace. I would pitter around and try to keep on top of things, but that was about it.

Now it's time for some serious "Back to Work" buisness. On top of my list is expanding my Web 2.0 or Social Bookmarking exposure. This is something that was new to me prior to the summer months. Yes, I did participate in several forums and write some articles, blogs, but didn't consider that to be "social bookmarking".

So about a month ago, I created a MySpace page. I have several other sites where I will be creating a page, on my "to do" list. Where will I find the time??? I suppose I don't have to sleep every night!

I have to admit that although it is a lot of work, it is also very exciting and fun to be meeting new people (even it is just online).

So to all my cyber-friends and colleagues...back to the grindstone!!

Lori

Driving Traffic to Your Site with Craigslist

For those of you that still don’t know what Craigslist is, try to imagine a gigantic flea market right at your finger tips. A place where you can buy anything from a designer handbag to a vacation home. There are people from all over the world selling their goods and services on Craigslist, with just as many people looking to purchase goods and/or services.
With the tremendous success of Craigslist, it has become one of the most regularly visited websites on the Internet. It is a traffic magnet, drawing massive amounts of visitors a day. Craigslist is used by millions of people every day. Tapping into this enormous market of visitors could result in more traffic to your website. Think about it, the people browsing through Craigslist are already in a “buying” mode, they are there looking for something. So offering your product or service can result in a higher conversion rate.
To register for an account with Craigslist, you need to supply a valid email address. You will then receive a link to follow to activate your account and create a password. You are then ready to submit your ads. For your convenience, the site is divided into regions. You can post your ad locally or by state and even by country. Imagine someone thousands of miles away, reading your ad with just a few clicks. It is free to post your ads and they will stay active for about 45 days. Of course you can always go back and re-post your ads over and over again to stay current.
This will help you to develop a nice flow of traffic to your site. The real traffic however, will come from Google. Google loves Craigslist and it is not unusual for ads placed on Craigslist to achieve a top ranking. This can occur in less than a week’s time. Once this happens, your ad will get some serious traffic. If you write your ad properly, you can even have that traffic directed right to your website.
To make sure your ads rank well with the search engines, use some of the same SEO tactics you used for your site. Optimize your ads for your keywords just as you did your web pages.
There are many other classified sites besides Craigslist. Of course they do not come close to the amount of traffic Craigslist achieves, but that doesn’t mean they should be over looked. Do a search to find other classified sites and then use them to along with Craigslist to drive more traffic to your site.

8 types of income the IRS can't touch
(By: Erich Winnecke)

Don't overpay taxes on income that's protected by the U.S. tax code. Here are the major categories to watch, including five types of raises that don't add a dime to your taxable income.

Want to keep the tax man away from your money? It's easier than you think. There are lots of ways to increase your wealth without having a chunk gobbled up by the IRS.

It's not that the agency doesn't want your money. It's just that the tax law prohibits the IRS from touching it. And with a bit of planning, you can start to cut your current tax bill and put money in your pocket now.

Let's look at a few examples.

Tax-free interest

Interest earned on bonds issued by a state, territory, municipality or any political subdivision is free from federal taxes. These are generically called municipal bonds, and their tax benefit increases in value as your marginal tax rate goes higher. (In other words, the bonds are worth more to you as your overall income rises.)

Assume you're in the 35% bracket, the top rate through the year 2010. A 5% tax-free rate becomes the equivalent of a taxable rate of 7.69%. In the 15% bracket, the taxable equivalent is only 5.88%. If you check out this page at investinginbonds.com, you can compare taxable and tax-free yields. Compare the after-tax rates on alternative investments of equivalent risk.

Some bonds may not only be tax-free at the federal level, they may also escape state and local taxes. If you're in the top brackets and live in New York City, this is one investment you definitely want to consider for your portfolio.

Car-pool receipts

Commuting to work? Bring a friend -- and his wallet. If you form a carpool to carry passengers to and from work, any dollars received from these passengers aren't included in your income.

Commuting costs are generally not deductible. But if you establish a carpool and you're reimbursed in amounts sufficient to cover the cost of your repairs, gas and similar items used in connection with operating your car to and from work, then you've converted personal nondeductible expenses into excludable income.


Assume you're in the 25% bracket for 2007 and 2008. You have to earn $133 per month to cover a $100 monthly commuting expense. If you have a carpool arrangement with expenses being reimbursed, you've got no additional income. But you do have an additional $133 per month in wealth!

Sell your house

Under a tax law enacted in 1997, if your house was your principal residence for two of the last five years, you can exclude as much as $250,000 in gain ($500,000 on a joint return) when you sell it.

You don't have to reinvest the money, and you can claim the exclusion every two years. (If you've got $500,000 in gain every two years, I want to meet your real estate agent and go shopping!)

If you don't meet the two-year rule, you can get a partial exclusion based on the time of use and ownership. Assume you sold after only one year and had a $50,000 profit.

Your exclusion is half the $250,000, not half the $50,000 profit. In this case, you'd pay zero tax on the sale.

But this partial exclusion is only if the sale is required because of either a change in place of employment, health reasons or unforeseen circumstances. I haven't yet seen final regulations defining "unforeseen circumstances." My understanding is that the IRS is going to be flexible here.


Tax-free compensation

When you're due for a raise, ask your company to get creative in your compensation. There are numerous ways to receive non-taxable compensation. Let's look at some of the best alternatives to taxable earned income.

Use your health coverage. Health and hospitalization insurance premiums paid by your current or former employer are tax-free -- a huge benefit. Let's say your health insurance premiums come to $280 a month or $3,360 a year (for an HMO policy for a family of four with a $1,500 deductible). If you're in the 25% tax bracket and have to pick up the bill, the real cost to you would be $4,480. That's $3,360 for the premiums and $1,120 for additional income taxes because you'll be paying for the coverage in after-tax dollars. Having your company pick up the cost helps both of you. It doesn't have to pay the salary necessary to get you even. It gets to write off the full cost of the coverage. Plus, neither of you has to pay the 7.65% payroll taxes on the premiums. And you, of course, boost your disposable income substantially.

Cover your life.

Group term life insurance coverage of $50,000 or less paid for by your company isn't taxed to you. You pick the beneficiary; your company pays the premiums. Your company deducts the expense; you walk away with additional tax-free income.

Send yourself to school.

Get educated. The courses don't even have to be job-related. But they can't be for any education involving sports, games, or hobbies. Your company can pay, and deduct, as much as $5,250 per year in educational assistance paid for either undergraduate or graduate courses. Again, that assistance comes to you tax-free.

Get you there…and parked.

Your company can give you discount fare cards, passes or tokens to take public transportation to work. As long as it's not worth more than $100 per month, your company can deduct it, but you, as an employee, receive it tax-free as a de minimus tax benefit. You're taxed only on any excess over the $100. If you drive and have to pay for parking, your company can provide free parking, up to a maximum value of $180 per month, to you tax-free.

Cafeteria plans.

These are sometimes called Flexible Spending Accounts. Your company makes deductible contributions under a written plan, which allows you to select between taxable and non-taxable benefits. To the extent you chose non-taxable benefits, you have no additional income. Available non-taxable benefits may include group life insurance, disability benefits, dependent care and/or accident and health benefits. Your individual plan details the options. You make your choices among the items on the cafeteria menu.

You get the idea. Any time you can convert taxable income into non-taxable income, you've given yourself a raise. And when both you and your company save money, it's a win-win for everybody.

You can read this and other useful information at the TOPS Work at Home Forum

Blogging Basics
If you are looking for a way to drive more traffic to your website, look no further. Blogging is a very effective way to bring new visitors to your site. Search engines like blogs and this is why when doing a keyword search, you will very often see a blog posting at the top of the list.
If you are not blogging, you are missing out on a lot of traffic to your site. Start one or several blogs and channel all that traffic to your main website. Your blog can be a subsection of your website or you can build a stand along version. Either way, make sure you link back to your main site. Place links to your home page as well as other pages from your site. You are trying to get as much exposure for your site as possible.
There are several ways you can use to create your blog. The two that I recommend are Blogger and Wordpress. They are both easy to use and navigate. They also offer a lot of features so you can customize the look of your blog. You have the option of hosting your blog on their servers or you can host it yourself. To host it yourself, you will need to purchase and register your own domain. Many hosting companies will offer free domain registration when you purchase a hosting account from them.
There are several benefits for hosting your blog yourself. For this article, we will discuss two of them. First, the url itself. If you host your blog on Blogger, your url will look like this: yourwebsite.blogspot.com. However, if you host it yourself, the url will look like this: yourwebsite.com. This will give your url a more professional, as well as credible, look. Plus, it will be much easier for your readers to remember.
The second reason to host your own blog is far more significant. Blogs that are hosted on free services, are at risk of disappearing without warning or reason. All your hard work and effort will be gone. If you choose to go this route, I highly recommend keeping backups of all your posting’s on a disc, just in case.
Here are some pointers to a successful blog. Post frequently, at least 2 – 3 times per week. Blogs that are not updated regularly will become boring and lose their following. Add an RSS feed so your readers can subscribe to your blog. This will also notify them when you have added a new post.
Give your blog personality. Make it interesting to your viewers. A dull, uninteresting blog will not build much of a following.
Finally, find other blogs in your niche and write some comments to their posts. Most blogs will allow you a link back to your site. Post useful, informative comments. Do not post SPAM or sales pitch comments. You can use this method to build good working business relationships as well as establish links back to your site.

The Benefits of Backlinks
Having knowledge of SEO tactics is helpful when marketing your web site. However, you will need more than this to rank well in the search engines when vying for highly competitive phrases. You will need backlinks, the more the better.
A backlink is when one webmaster exchanges links with another webmaster. I will place your link on my site and in return, you will place my link on your site. You will see that having a few high quality backlinks on your site will make it more appealing to the search engines.
Search engines, such as Google, will see a link on your site as a vote for you. A vote means that someone thought highly enough of your site to link to it. The more links, the more votes you have. The more votes, the more important your site must be. This could lead to a higher ranking with search engines and as you know, higher page ranking = higher volume in traffic.
Now that we know why backlinks are important, let’s discuss how to obtain them.
No one will “vote” or link to a site that is ordinary or low quality. To get more links, make sure your site has something to offer. Put high quality content that is unique on your site, something that cannot be found anywhere else. People will want to link to your site if they feel that it is unique and informative. If it is everyday or ordinary, they will think twice before exchanging links.
To help you obtain links, you should make the process as easy as possible. Consider setting up a “Link to Us” page that will provide html code for them to copy and paste on their site. Make sure to include your keywords within your anchor text (anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a link) in the code you provide. They will in turn leave their information to be included on your site.
Another way to obtain backlinks is to write articles and submit them to various directories. Along with your article will be a resource box which will tell the readers a little bit about yourself. More importantly, it will include a link to your site. Other webmasters will post your article, with your resource box containing the link to your site, on their site. Providing they feel your article provides something of interest to its readers. One single article could get you dozen’s of backlinks.
In addition, you can find other sites related to yours and offer to exchange links, trade content or offer to write a regular column for them. You can also submit your site to free directories that are related to content of your site.
Lastly, find blogs that are related, and post comments. Be sincere, you never know what new relationships may form. You can not only trade links with the blog owner, but also ideas. You remember the old phrase “I’ll scratch your back, if you’ll scratch mine”. Use it to your advantage. Negotiate an opportunity where you will both benefit.

Drive More Traffic to Your Site with Article Marketing

Since the early days of the Internet, article marketing has been used as an effective way to generate traffic to your website and is still just as effective today.

For you to be successful, you will need to be consistent with your efforts as well as write quality articles. If you can achieve this, it will provide you with not only a constant flow of visitors but also links back to your site that will benefit you for years to come.

Let’s take a minute to examine how article marketing works.

In a nutshell, you write articles and place them on other websites. In exchange, you will now have a link back to your site. You should try to avoid using the same articles that you have on your own site. It is best to share unique, high quality articles. This will get you more backlinks and traffic to your site. While doing this, you will also be building your reputation as an expert in your field. It is a great way to get your name out there.

You may find it difficult to get started with your article marketing campaign. It is not as hard as you think. First, write some articles. Write about something related to your field of work. If you sell lawn mowers for example, don’t write an article about making chocolate. Keep the subject related to your “niche”. Your articles should be around 300 – 600 words and offer genuine, useful information. Stay away from writing a long “ad” for your product or service. You need to hold the attention of the reader so keep it interesting.

As mentioned earlier, you will want to write separate articles for your article marketing campaign. Another suggestion is to do the same keyword research you would do for your own website and put those words in your article. Take some time to proof read and check for spelling and/or grammar errors.

Now that you have your informative and quality articles written, you will need to find places to submit them. It is very time consuming to work on building a close relationship with other webmasters in your field. However, it can be very beneficial to you if you can do so.

An alternative to this would be to use article directories that will allow you to post your article for free. Other webmasters can then read your article and place it on their site. Here are a few of these directories: ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com and articleally.com. Do a search for “article directories” and you will find thousands of these types of sites.

Posting your article to each of these sites individually can be very time consuming. An option to this would be to use a service that would do this for you, such as SubmitYOURArticle.com. These services will charge a small fee to become a member. Once a member, you can post your article once and they will take care of the rest, posting it to other article directories.

Don’t forget to include an author bio with all of your articles. This will be a few lines telling readers something about you. This should be kept short yet capturing the attention of the reader. Always include: your name, URL (such as http://yourdomain.com ) and a short teaser to allure readers to your site. Offer them something if they visit your site. I offer a free subscription to my work at home newsletter just for visiting.

Now that you have the basics of starting an article marketing campaign, you are on your way to an endless stream of visitors to your site.

There are many benefits to working at home. No boss to answer to, no alarm clock waking you in the wee hours of the morning, no traffic or outrageous gas prices to deal with. You can make your own schedule to accommodate your family (a huge benefit if you have small children), your hobbies and any other commitments you may have.
These benefits come with some drawbacks as well. It is very important and essential to your success, that you keep focused and productive while maintaining a happy home environment. When working at home, you lose the structure of a “work environment”. Following, are some tips to help you achieve this.
1. Office Space. You will need some place to “set up shop” in your home. This can be anything from a spare room or a table set up in the basement to a corner of the kitchen table. Once you find a spot, it should be stocked with whatever you need to do your work and stay organized. You may also want to hang a diploma or name plate. Do whatever is needed to make this a professional looking work space.
Once this is achieved, everyone in the home should know and respect this as your office. Make it known that it is off-limits during your working hours.
2. Scheduling. Decide your working hours. This should include your break times as well as lunch time. If you have small children, it may be best for you to work when your children are at school. Other’s find they do their best work early in the morning or late at night. Find out what time of the day you are most productive. Once you determine this, stick to it. It is vital to your success to be consistent.
You can also break down your day as to when you will answer emails, make phone calls, work on advertising, etc. Also, make note of any priority tasks. It might be advisable to keep a note board near your work space where you can write down any tasks that need your attention. You are your boss as well as your employee. So you will have to answer to yourself when things don’t go right.
3. Stay Energized and Motivated. Anyone can get discouraged by setbacks. Since you have no co-workers to talk with when setbacks occur, you have no way to vent. A great way to deal with this is to join an online network or forum of home based workers. This is a great way to bounce around ideas and concerns you may have. If needed, on a nice day, move your office outside or go to lunch with friends. Flexibility is a key benefit to being your own boss. Do whatever it takes to get you motivated and back on track.
4. Dress for Success. Yes, it is nice to be able to sit in your P.J.’s with your hair undone wearing your fuzzy slippers. However, this could make you feel less like a business person. You might feel as if you have a day off instead of a day at work. You don’t necessarily have to wear a suit or dress, but you should wear something that puts you in a professional frame of mind. This frame of mind will influence the tone of your voice while on the phone as well as any email correspondence.
5. Know When to Say When. Mastering all of the above is a great accomplishment. Well done! Now, you must learn when to call it a day. When working at home it is easy to keep going whenever you can. This will not only cut into your personal time but also your family time. Make sure to set limits so you can enjoy life!

Lori Gorman
President, www.myebizplace.com

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Writing an Effective Business Plan

So you’re thinking about starting a home based business. Rest assured you are not alone. There are thousands of people all over the world that start their own businesses every year. A small percentage of these people will find success while the majority will find their expectations have not been met. There are many factors that set these two groups apart. The most important being a business plan. If you do not have a business plan to guide you from the start, you will be spinning your wheels; just ask the people that have tried to go without one in the past. You need to take the time and write a step by step plan or guideline that you will use throughout developing your business.When you sit down to write up your business plan you are going to be forced to think about the direction you want to take. Many people skip this step because it can be very time consuming, and somewhat intimidating. Think of it as an outline with your main objective or goal being the heading. Then list the steps and even the “sub-steps” you will need to take to get you there. Of course you can always edit or modify it as you move towards your goal. Without this plan, you’ll have nothing to base your progress or lack of progress on.

The main reason of writing a business plan is to determine the direction of your business, and how you are going to get there. In your business plan you will need to include information on anything that has to do with the success of your business. This can include financial information, time restrictions, your level of knowledge in what you are doing, a time line for progress, and hiring employees among others. It can also include draw backs or obstacles. What can you anticipate might stand in your path of reaching your goal? How can you avoid it before it becomes a problem?If you are having a difficult time getting started on your home business plan, you are like the majority of other people. If you have never written one of these before it can be very difficult to even get started. Of course, being new to the Work at Home business, you may not be aware of some of the things that should be included in your plan. The best thing to do if you find yourself in this situation is to find a sample business plan online. Use this plan as a guideline to set up your own individual plan based on your business needs. . Pay special attention to the sections of the business plan. In other words, if the sample has information on finances, you will want to include this in your home business plan. You may also want to inquire about any free training that is provided to you or discussion groups or Work at Home Forums for further support and advice.
A home business plan is essential if you want to be successful. Very seldom can you get buy without having a business plan, so why take the chance? As your business expands, you will be glad that you have a well written, quality home business plan to fall back on.

Visit www.myebizplace.com for up-to-date, legitimate work from home opportunities.

The Importance of Setting Goals


If you want to be successful at anything, you will need to set some goals for yourself. These can be short terms (immediate) goals or long term (future) goals. I find it easier to start with my long term goals. What is it that I want to have accomplished 2 years from now, 3 years from now? Where do I want to be? What do I want to achieve?

Once you have these answers, it will enable you to see the big picture. Now write down your goals. A goal is just an idea until it is written down. Write your goals down, all of them and place them somewhere where you can see them every day. I have mine next to my computer with another list on the refrigerator. Visuals are also good to have. If it is your goal to move into a bigger house, have a picture of that house near by. This is going to give you the motivation that you need to succeed.

Now that you have the big picture, we need to work backwards and set smaller goals that will lead you to your bigger goal. If not, your big goals might seem so big and overwhelming that you will not be motivated enough to take the necessary action to reach them. Breaking them down into smaller goals, baby steps, will definitely get you motivated. For example, if your goal is to lose 100 pounds, you will find it difficult to find the motivation for losing 100 pounds. However, if you set a goal of losing 2 pounds a week, that’s much more attainable.

Write a 90 day plan for yourself. Where are you now? Where do you want to be? Try to think of what possible obstacles will stand between you and your goals. How will you deal with them? Every 90 days, re-evaluate where you are and set another 90 day plan. Make adjustments as needed. Stay focused! This will take some discipline on your part. Without focus, there is no motivation. Without motivation, your goal will never be reached.