Month: December 2022

Work at Home With Google AdSense Online Business Opportunities

If you’re one of those people who want to easily earn money online through your blogs and/or website if you have, then signing up for Google AdSense is the best way to start with. It might be somewhat unfamiliar to most of us, but once you know how it works, it will definitely add an increase to your income without taking so much time.

Many people have already gained a lot from signing up to Google AdSense, but its advantage is not that known to everyone. So for beginners, let’s take the steps one by one going up to its critical points to know more on how it works.

First thing to do is to have a blog and/or website and you can sign up at Google AdSense for free. After you sign up for a free account, you can already put ads that are relevant to your content on your site. Available also in your site are the adverts relevant to your area, because of the information you are giving to Google. By this, buyers from different places who will visit your blogs and/or website can relate to your ads.

Making your ads appealing and with relevance to the buyers helps you make money from Google. With every click you will receive from your blog and/or website visitors is a credit in your AdSense.

So, you would ask, “how can I make my blog appealing”? It’s just simple. AdSense offers a lot of choices for you to make your blog attractive such as its color scheme, color and borders that will suit to its appearance. For a beginner like you, experimenting is never a bad idea for it helps you gain knowledge about Google AdSense.

On the other hand, though many earn a lot from integrating Google AdSense in their blogs and/or website, still there are some who are less fortunate to have fewer visitors in a day as compared to others. Because of this, some resolve to find other strategies in which they can earn more.

For that instance, going to the AdSense’ advanced level and starting other sites with different but common topics catches the attention of many. These AdSense are then located in the most advantageous position to get more clicks. You may even add up links to the site which will also add a bit to your income.

The advantage of having these types of sites is that, when you have already created and have an own domain name, all you have to do then is to endorse and update them each day which is also done by putting news stories that are related to your subject to have more visitors by having a higher rank in the search engine results.

The last yet the most important thing in here is to wisely choose a subject. Something that would really jive in the interest of the visitors such as topics relating to health, fashion trends, high-earning jobs and a lot more.

To sum it up, integrating your blogs and/or website in a Google AdSense is the best way to start earning money. It won’t just five you income but also knowledge and skills in improving sites and blogs. It may even take you to the edge of becoming an AdSense expert which again, will give you extra income without hassles in the job.

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Effective Website Design: How to Turn a Visitor Into a Customer (Part One)

One of the biggest challenges of a business website is how to turn a visitor into a customer. You only have a few seconds to grab the attention of your prospect, keep it long enough to build your credibility, and make them choose you over your competition. How do we convert these potential customers into a sale?

You do it with effective website design.

Your website design determines whether they like you, and whether they want to do business with you. It’s as simple as that. If you can build enough interest, there will be a tipping point that turns them from visitor into a customer. I am going to share with you some effective website design elements that will deliver those customers. This article is part one.

Website Branding

When I sit down with a client who wants to build a website for their business, the first thing I ask them is if they have a logo. Why? Because this is a good starting point to see if they have created any kind of branding for their business. What’s a brand? It’s a visual element (or a group of elements) that helps your target market identify you from your competition. When the market sees your brand, they think of you. For example: When you think of the insurance giant Aflac, what comes to mind? The duck, right? You might also think of their logo with its specific font, specific shade of blue, and of course, the duck with the orange beak. Your website should be no different. When someone lands on your home page, you need to arrest them with a very distinct look and feel that sets you apart from your competition.

A recent example of this is from a client’s website we just launched a month ago. Even though he had been in the label business since 1995, he had absolutely no branding; just a really lame logo with no colors, and a lousy font. As I started researching the competition, I noticed that most of his competitors’ websites also had terrible branding (which made me happy), and were rather impersonal. Something I noticed about my client was that he had only one leg (he had lost it the previous summer from diabetes). So, I went for broke and said, “Let’s make you the icon of your business with your one leg”.

He loved the idea.

So, I took a picture of him with his one leg, and put it up on the site. I wrote a few paragraphs with the heading, “A Leg Up on the Competition”. It was written from his point-of-view. We had him talk about losing his leg, and not being discouraged about it. I then had him urge people to donate to the American Diabetes Association. Instant personality and branding. It was real, and real engaging. After doing some search engine optimization for his website, we now have it in the top 10 (nationally) for the search term, “labels for bottles” on Google. He is starting to get some good feedback from his site even though it has only been launched a few months.

By creating a good brand for your company up-front, you’ll have a much easier time building a website that connects with your intended audience. Good branding will set you apart from your competition, and make your potential customers choose you to do business with instead of other websites.

There are three other elements to capturing visitors to your website, and turning them into customers. I will be writing parts 2-4 for EzineArticles.com in the coming months, but if you would like to read about these three other elements now, you can visit my original article on the subject of effective website design (link shown below).

Mobile Monopoly – The Fresh Technique For Your Achievement in Online Marketing

Out of all the online marketing items that are widely spoken about regularly, I would say that the Mobile Monopoly program is almost certainly very interesting as well as the most groundbreaking.

If we evaluate online marketing as well as to observe how effective and profitable it has been within the last ten or even fifteen years, and continue to do so, we will see that it is very popular. You see, it’s believed that approximately one point eight billion individuals’ are connected to the internet. Now check out the cellular phone also known as the ‘Mobile Phone’ business; from this all of us can easily see the massive dimension of it. At present, approximately five billion people throughout the world own a cellular phone; therefore, you can easily see the opening for success that marketing and advertising with this industry can bring to you.

In fact, the five billion mobile phone or cell phone consumers are waiting for you to send your advertising to them. In reality these are the sort of customers that businesses all over the world would choose to advertise their products, particularly the fifty million individuals’ who currently have the smart phones. The number of people with smart phones is growing; and to prove my point, Apple not too long ago released apple iPhone4, and they sold over three million models within a calendar month.

Big organisations such as Google as well as the Apple company are continuously altering their marketing and advertising methods in order to dive into this enormous industry, and after Google purchased the promoting system AdMob, the Apple company reacted by releasing their very own marketing system iAd.

Marketing and advertising in this particular market is growing, however, amazingly it continues to be unheard of by many companies, and internet marketers remain unfamiliar with the way it operates, and the excellent opportunity that’s before them when using this system. They do not know how to implement it, and how they can earn an income from using it. Now Mr Adam Horwitz the person who developed ‘Mobile Monopoly’ will show you gradually how you can generate money using his program. He offers to lift the cover from the key techniques he utilizes to get more than $1,000 daily in real earnings from cellular phones. Adam also would display the techniques he applied to simply obtain traffic even when you do not possess an internet site or keyword phrases.

His online video system will show you what is needed to become a member of this fresh emerging trend.

How to Sell Your Product or Service When It’s NOT the Cheapest

It just makes sense that you’ll get more business when your product or service is the cheapest, right? But what happens when you’re significantly higher than your competitors. Are you going to get shut out of the market?

Often these days there is someone who is selling a product or service just like yours, but at a ridiculously low price. Maybe you’re offering a service people at Fiverr are offering for $5 (that’s $4 after Fiverr takes their $1 fee!) Right now I’m charging $99 to write your press release, which is the lowest price I’ve offered since 1999. But there are others who are writing press releases for $10, $7, even $5.

Chances are YOUR business is experiencing the same problem. Even though your product is priced as low as you can without going broke, any customer can Google the product and find somebody selling the same product below invoice. That could be because the business is giving away the product to bring more customers in or they’re a BIG firm who buys the product by the millions and gets a huge discount from the manufacturer.

Whatever the case — there IS a way to convince customers YOU have the best VALUE, even if your price isn’t the lowest.

One example of how it’s done is a friend who designs web sites for $70 per hour. A client was about to hire him when they heard of a teenager working part-time charging $10 per hour. My friend explained that when the $10-hour designer made a mess out of their website, the client would have to pay all over again to have a pro fix and design their site the right way.

The client realized paying $70 per hour would be their best VALUE:

* Fewer headaches. Their site would be done right.

* Faster results. The experienced designer would have the site up sooner and ready to do business.

* Better site would mean bigger sales, probably paying for the designer’s fee right away

The client thought why should I mess around taking a chance on saving a little money in the design. What I really need is a good site, done right and quickly, and get on with running my business and increasing sales.

This story is a good example of how you can convince customers your higher price is the best deal:

* Customers can TRUST you to do the job right

* Your better SERVICE will make the price worth it

* You are EASIER to work with

* The customer will get RESULTS

Come to think of it. I think I’ll have one of those guys who writes a sales letter for $7 do their best. Then I’ll post MY sales letter next to theirs. Next to that I’ll feature testimonials from customers who rave about how they trust me, love my service, and find it easy to get results.

5 Benefits Of Using YouTube For Video Hosting

In 2005, the biggest video sharing website of the world was born. It was named YouTube by its creators. Soon, it was purchased by the search engine giant Google for around 1.6b dollars. On this platform, you can share your videos with the whole world easily. Millions of people will watch your videos from across the globe. Given below are a few benefits of hosting your videos on YouTube. Read on to know more.

Vast Audiences From Across The Globe

The success of a business is based on its visibility. For visibility, you don’t have any option that is better than YouTube. Once you have uploaded your videos choosing the right category and place, you are good to go. If your video is liked by tons of people, it may go viral. Once it goes viral, it will get tremendous amount of viewers in a short period of time. So, the website has a huge audience.

Cost of Hosting

If you want to host your personal or business videos on a paid hosting service, the cost will be very high. On the other hand, if you choose YouTube to host your videos on, the cost will be zero. You don’t have to spend any money on the operational aspect of your channel on YouTube. The site management will take care of everything. All you need to do is upload and publish your original videos.

Ease of Use

If you opt for paid hosting, you will have to spend a lot of time buying domain names, choosing web hosts and setting up your website. But with YouTube, you have an easy path to walk on. Everything is already set up, so you just need to create an account and that is it. By following some basic steps, you can upload your videos as fast as your connection allows. So, YouTube is a lot easier to use.

Web Traffic

Your videos will be of no use if they don’t get watched by anyone. In case of your own website, you will have to take the necessary steps in order to bring visitors. On the other hand, if you upload them on YouTube, the visitors will come to your channel on your own. Since the platform is owned by Google, the videos will be indexed in its database automatically.

Bandwidth and sustainability

Since YouTube has dedicated servers, you don’t have to worry about the bandwidth and space. You can post as many videos as you can. The unlimited bandwidth will allow millions of viewers to watch your videos at the same time. In case of paid hosting, if you have not signed up for unlimited bandwidth and your videos go viral, the server may end up crashing and your viewers won’t be able to watch any of your videos. In case of YouTube, this is no problem.

So, if you have been looking at a paid hosting service to upload your business or personal videos, we suggest that you try out YouTube first. I bet you won’t regret your decision.

Internet Marketing 101: Online Marketing for Small Business

Introduction

You own a small business. Do you need a website? An Internet presence can be a necessity or a resource-draining boondoggle, depending on your business and your target audience. You shouldn’t build or maintain a website simply because “everyone else has one.” However, even if you own a one-person services company and get all the business you can handle through word of mouth, you can still create an online presence with a minimum of time and expense.

If and when you do develop a business website, you’ll need to make some kind of investment in Internet-based marketing. Consumers increasingly and overwhelmingly use the Internet to research and buy goods and services. This means the competition is robust, and if your site doesn’t announce its presence it will simply sit and gather (virtual) dust in some computer’s memory.

If you’ve convinced yourself that you need to enter the web marketing arena, the following report provides a fundamental primer on the most widely used tactics for both paid and free Internet advertising. Just remember that each of the topics introduced here is complex enough that there are entire books written about them, so if something appeals to you do some additional research before jumping in.

Before You Start

There are two main questions you must ask yourself before starting any marketing efforts, whether on- or offline: “Who is my audience?” and “What are my objectives?”

Audience

The audience for most business marketing activities is obviously past, present, and future customers. However, as in traditional advertising and marketing, it helps to narrow down who you are trying to reach, segmenting your market by age, geography, gender, interests, occupation. Certain methods of Internet marketing, such as pay-per-click ads, allow you to target your customers based on this type of segmentation.

Objectives

We can assume that the overall objective of most marketing is to sell products and/or services, but you may have additional objectives for online marketing. These related objectives will hopefully end up driving increased sales, but they can be more subtle than simply asking customers to buy right now. For example, your online marketing plan might include goals such as these:

  • Support and increase visibility of your company’s brand.
  • Improve search engine rankings.
  • Offer reference information related to your business sector.
  • Increase number of registered users or newsletter subscribers.
  • Drive traffic to your company website.

After defining your audience and marketing goals, you can begin to formulate an Internet marketing strategy and tactics. When getting into online marketing, it is important that you maintain brand consistency. Build on the reputation that you have already established. Your on-line presence should mirror that of your “brick and mortar” presence. Use the same logo and tagline so that people will understand that you are the same company. Having an online presence is a way to build on what you have already accomplished.

In the remainder of this report we’ll look at the most common ways you can use the Internet to deliver your message and start increasing your sales.

Table of Contents

websites

E-Mail

Newsletters

Other Announcements

Search Engine Marketing and Display Advertising

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Pay-per-Click (PPC)

Display Advertising

Social Media and Networking

Decide: Who, What, Where, When, and Why?

YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, Etc.

Twitter

Blogs

Forums & Discussion Groups

Article Placement / E-Zines

Other Internet Marketing Outlets

Wikipedia

Directories

websites

We won’t get into the vast topic of how to build and manage a website, but if you aim to use the techniques described below, it is nearly essential to have one. Most of your marketing efforts will have a “call to action” that involves your audience visiting your website to research products or services, find contact information, sign up for a newsletter, or place an online order. Whatever you are asking people to do in your online promotions, make sure the website allows them to easily complete that task. One other vital component of any business website is an analytics program (Google offers a fairly robust application free of charge), so you can track how well your marketing efforts are working and calculate the return on your advertising investment (ROI).

How can you develop an online presence at little or no cost? There are several companies that offer free site building tools and hosting services. If you go this route, select a company that has a proven track record, so your hard work isn’t wasted when the company goes out of business or suspends the service. A couple of reliable options are Google Sites and Yola. If you have any money in your budget at all, you should probably just spend the less than $100 per year it takes to buy a personalized domain name (for example, “mybusiness.com”) and a Web hosting service. Another potential option, depending on your business and marketing goals, is to create a free blog (see below for more details). The most popular free blogging services as of this writing are WordPress and Blogger.

E-Mail Newsletters

E-mail newsletters provide one of the most highly performing avenues for marketing. You can collect customer e-mail addresses by asking visitors that come to your website to subscribe, by requesting e-mail addresses from anyone who visits your physical location, or by purchasing an e-mail list. To generate a higher rate of readership, make sure the audience is narrowly targeted and has some vested interest in your product. By sending out your newsletter on a regular schedule (weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.) you can counteract the transient and temporary nature of Internet users by continually reminding them of your company’s existence. Affordable services like Constant Contact can be used to manage mailing lists, statistics, and opt-in/out functions.

Caveat: Sending commercial e-mail messages to people who have not agreed to receive your mailings can result in severe fines and penalties from the federal government per terms of the CAN-SPAM Act.

Newsletter content should appeal to your defined audiences, with industry- or product-related news and events, company-specific news and events, practical reference information, and interesting statistical and demographic information. The newsletter copy should publicize links to appropriate pages within your website.

You will need to maintain one or more separate lists for the purpose of sending targeted messages to particular audiences (see Other Announcements below). You might combine all your lists to send a monthly newsletter, and send other bulletins to past or potential customers as appropriate.

Other Announcements

Other announcements are e-mailings that can consist of press releases, coupons, special notices, or anything you want to communicate specifically to members of one or more e-mail lists.

Search Engine Marketing, Pay-per-Click and Display Advertising

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization means constructing a website that is easily crawled by search engine spiders, and it encompasses a variety of techniques designed to improve your site’s (or page’s) ranking in the search engine results page. The goal is for your site to be found by searchers who are looking for sites related to a certain keyword or phrase, for example “little red wagon” if you are in the business of selling toy wagons. SEO can be divided into on-page activities (e.g., amount of content, metadata, links, programming methods and structural issues) and off-page activities (most importantly, obtaining links from other websites to your site).

Pay-per-Click (PPC)

Pay-per-click advertising refers to text ads displayed on search engine results pages (versus “organic” results achieved by SEO) and other sites, usually in the margins. In the case of Google AdWords and Microsoft’s adCenter, you can open an account and specify the keyword(s) that, when searched for, will generate an ad that links to your website. You pay only when a searcher clicks an ad and is directed to your site. In the example below, the key phrase is “little red wagon,” and pay-per-click ads are located at top (in yellow) and in the right-hand column (subtitled “Sponsored Links”). The first organic listing is “Little Red Wagon Foundation.”

A few of the benefits of PPC advertising are that you know exactly how many people view your ads, how many of those viewers click through to your website, and (if you are using a site analytics tool) what they do once they reach your site. You can also start and stop running ads at a moment’s notice, experiment with any number of ads you like, and fund your campaign with as little as $10 to start.

Display Advertising

Display advertising, also called banner advertising, means purchasing ad space on another website and placing a text and/or graphic ad with a link to your site. This technique is generally more complex and expensive than pay-per-click, but can be very powerful if the right message is shown to a tightly focused audience. To achieve optimal click-through rate (CTR), advertise on websites where you assume your target audience is visiting, rather than a general interest website. Most marketers don’t purchase ad space directly from another website, but use a banner ad network to automatically place ads on appropriate websites. A couple of the biggest names in display ad serving are DoubleClick and BurstMedia.

Social Media and Networking

Social networking is the latest buzz in the modern marketing arsenal. If you have any doubt about its impact, especially on the under-40 population, read this list. Small businesses with limited resources should weigh their time spent and the potential benefits carefully, however. It can also be difficult to measure the return on your investment for some of these tactics.

The general principle of “marketing” on social networking outlets is that people who have similar interests will virtually congregate around Web content that discusses that interest. They may be interested in product information in the form of reviews or personal opinion, but hard sale approaches are mostly discouraged and unproductive. Your goal is to become a trusted advisor-which usually means revealing your identity and at least some part of your personality. If that premise makes you uncomfortable, you might still find social networking sites valuable for market research purposes. Find out what people are buying and why, then use that information to help shape your other marketing activities.

The following section describes the more popular social media outlets and sites, but keep your eyes open for new virtual spaces where you might get more attention by getting in on the ground floor.

YouTube, Facebook, Etc.

YouTube allows you to post videos on your own “channel,” a distinct Web page that can be customized and allows for posting links back to your own website. A major positive aspect of this venue is that the number of views is posted and viewers can submit comments, so you know whether your videos are popular and why.

Facebook is considered the model for modern social networking sites. Facebook allows you (individual, corporate, non-profit, etc.) to create a page, attract “likes” and reviews, communicate with followers by posting status updates, photos and videos, and so on.

Although the previously named sites are the most popular in terms of visitors, there are a couple of business-oriented networking sites that may be more useful for making business connections. LinkedIn helps you develop a network of clients, service providers, and subject experts; find business opportunities and partners; post job openings; and more. More detailed advice on best practices for using LinkedIn can be found in many online articles and blogs.

Twitter

Think of Twitter as a mini-blog (see below) that allows you to broadcast messages of 140 characters or less. The messages appear to your “followers” on their phones or computers, as well as on Twitter.com. The biggest challenges are to gain a useful number of followers and to think of something engaging to write to them. If you are a speaker, writer, or performer Twitter can be used to let your fans know what you’re doing and when. If you have a retail store you might let your followers know that you’re offering a discounted item or running a special sale. You should post a Twitter sign-up link on your website, and within your signature line in outgoing e-mail messages. You can also gain followers by following people who work in or comment on your industry, as some Twitter users will follow those who follow them.

Blogs

The word blog originally came from the term “Web log.” There’s no real standard for what a blog is, but most commonly authors use them to comment on (and link to) other online news items, websites, or other Internet content. For the most part, direct selling on a blog is frowned upon and is probably a recipe for driving away potential readers. What do you write about, then? Well, if you run an Internet marketing firm you write about trends in Web marketing, what the search engines are up to, tips for do-it-yourselfers, or what you thought of the latest Hollywood blockbuster. Seriously, read some blogs and you will find all sorts of personal opinion mixed in with professional advice and commentary. The goal of your blog, however, should most likely be to establish yourself as an expert and trusted advisor in your chosen field.

You might also pursue getting your products, services, or website mentioned in related blogs by other industry experts. When a high-visibility blogger mentions a website on his or her blog, the site is exposed to a potential audience of new viewers. Often, blog postings are simply press releases that are picked up by sites that discuss topics related to a particular product or industry. More opportunities (and traffic) in this arena can be realized by developing relationships with individual bloggers.

Additional Tips:

  • Post an article that was written by someone else, just be sure to provide a link to the original article and give credit to the person wrote it. You can then give your commentary on the topic of the article or find a way to relate the information to local trends or challenges.

  • Ask colleagues to be “guest bloggers” by writing articles for you to post, again giving them credit and adding their byline and a link to their website. Using links is a good way to drive additional traffic to their sites so it’s a good trade-off for both parties.

  • Nick Francesco of AskNick.com said, “A blog gets people’s attention and Twitter keeps it.” Consider using these two outlets together.

Forums & Discussion Groups

A forum (also known as discussion group, message board or bulletin board) is a component of a website where users can ask questions, offer advice, or share experiences with others about a certain topic or topics. Nearly every hobby on earth has a number of popular forums wherein members offer their thoughts and feelings on all aspects of their favorite pastime. Contributing a comment (with a link to your website) in discussion groups related to your products or services can create a small surge or spike in traffic, but usually has little long-lasting effect. To maximize effectiveness, target forums on high-traffic sites that have 1,000+ users, and reply to topics with larger numbers of views (relative to other posted topics).

You can easily build your own bulletin board/forum component on your site with free or low-cost software. User forums have the potential to greatly increase the “stickiness” of a site, given a critical mass of traffic required to generate new discussions and keep participants interested in returning. You can start by “seeding” topics on your own, but there won’t be any results until traffic is directed to the forums. The conundrum for small businesses may be the time required to moderate a forum once it becomes successful. One solution is to seek out a volunteer moderator who exhibits a keen interest in your field. A sample of a baseball trading card forum is shown in the screen shot below.

Article Placement / E-Zines

Another avenue for generating incoming links and traffic to your site is the free article market. Article submission (or e-zine) websites allow you to publish articles on a variety of topics. Examples include EzineArticles and ArticleCity.com.

Depending on terms of use, these articles may be used as content on other websites, or collected on the site where submitted. The main objective of most article contributors is to increase their search engine rankings with the placement of backlinks on other reputable sites. Providing reliable and accurate reference information is secondary, and the traffic potential from article readers is questionable.

Obtaining links from article submission sites isn’t likely to improve your site’s search engine rankings much. However, existing content from a print newsletter or other written material can be re-purposed with a relatively small time investment. Be aware that creating articles from your website’s content verbatim may cause search engines to penalize your site, as the search engines take a dim view of text that is republished multiple times (“duplicate content” in search engine optimization terms). Submitting articles to sites with the most traffic will give your site the best chance to be discovered by new readers.

Caveat: Once an article is submitted, you have little or no control over who uses your content and for what purpose, depending on the copyright policies of the site on which the article is posted.

Other Internet Marketing Outlets

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is, essentially, an online encyclopedia. The unique aspect of Wikipedia is that users generate the content, though content must be approved by volunteer editors. Traffic will grow if and when others link to the entry. If you add content, your time commitment will be relatively minor, and the benefits might include improved search engine ranking and a slight increase in traffic to your site. As with other forms of Internet communication, a Wikipedia entry that is essentially a commercial for a product, service, or company will not be viewed positively and is unlikely to be approved by editors.

Directories

Online directories allow Internet users to browse through categories of topics to find websites related to a certain subject. There are directories for businesses, blogs, websites in general, and more. Many directories are free, and some only list you if you pay. The mother of free directories is the Open Directory Project, and by all accounts the best paid directory for business is the Yahoo! Directory ($299 annually). Be aware that you might wait a long time for some of the free directories to list your site, as they may rely on volunteer screeners. Directories not only allow consumers to find you in their listings, they also help get your site indexed in the major search engines. If you submit your site to a directory, make sure to read the submission guidelines and follow them exactly.

What Is An Online Business?

When we mention the phrase “Online Business” – we are actually referring to the term utilized for any sort of business deal that comprises the sharing of information or data across the World Wide Web. This is also referred to as e-business.

In this current age, research has proven that more and more businesses are being introduced online on daily basis. This is because it offers loads of benefits and leverage for new businesses and existing ones.

The benefits of utilizing online marketing over that of offline (brick-and-mortar) marketing is primarily that of extensive reach, robust customer communication, target audience engagement, among others. Below are basic advantages of online business and marketing and why it is important for you to consider having your business launched on the internet.

Online Business & Marketing Offers Widespread Audience Potential

If you are just starting out a new business or have been in business for long; once you decide to expand and launch out online, you will have more opportunities to reach out to more customers. Launching your business online will offer you access to millions of prospective consumers online, locally and globally. Online marketing helps you reach these customers much easier and even at lesser fee than you would through offline business marketing. As an online marketer, you will be able to target more people by simply placing ads in diverse search engines, including those of Yahoo, Bing, Google, etc. With SEO applied, and using specific vital related business keywords, the business can gain first-page search engine ranking which is great for attracting loads of organic traffic and, as a result, more exposure to potential customers all around the world.

It Provides Available Information

With online business and marketing product details are more widely and readily available to large audience of people who might be interested in such products/services. It allows you to post service or product images, descriptions and prices on the internet via your website. Having an online business lets you reveal key advantages of your services or products over other competitors.

It Offers Better Tracking

With dedicated software – online businesses can easily and better track business activities online. With this, businesses can apportion more advertising dollars to the right search engines to produce greater volume of website traffic.

Online Business Provides Better Customer Engagement and Contact

Online business and marketing offers better customer engagement and contact. This is because the internet offers businesses the platform and capacity to deliver clear communication to their target audience and customers. With the potentials to generate email leads from website visitors, effective communication becomes easier and more direct, with much better benefit to enjoy higher returns on investment. This is also quite cheaper to attain than it is with offline business and marketing.

Business Networking – Spiderman’s Not The Only One Building Webs

Business Networking is crucial to the success of your business. Building a foundational web of contacts, support and resources can be the difference between success and moderate success, or success and failure.

If you are new to online business, Internet marketing, or the business of doing business, you may not be as familiar as you should be with business networking. Let’s discuss this very important aspect of doing business, especially as it relates to business online.

The term business networking refers to the practice of people spreading knowledge of their business, products, and services to others in a manner that leaves a good impression, lets people recall you and your business, and encourages the formation of strategic alliances. It is a process of meeting and familiarizing yourself with others, and building relationships that are important to the success and profitability of your business.

Most Internet marketers and entrepreneurs quickly come to realize that in order to grow their businesses, they needed to engage in business networking for all of the same reasons offline businesses do – sharing services, forming partnerships to help promote one another, building sources of support, and expanding their reach and resources. This is really the crux of business networking, to form alliances which translate to mutually beneficial relationships.

Even though some entrepreneurs have years of business and professional experience offline, for whatever reason, they often ignore the practice of networking when becoming engaged in online business. This may be due to their unfamiliarity or inexperience with the Internet, where they may not immediately grasp its fundamental principle. After all, the Internet is networking; the ultimate means of sharing of information.

Business Networking is an activity. Its purpose is to find and build upon connections and relationships that will benefit you and your business. Period. It requires the active participation of the parties involved, and it includes connecting with other people who may be your peers, potential mentors, individuals who have similar business interests, or people who have other things in common with you.

You will likely discover various benefits of networking. These may include new sources of support, added business knowledge, and increased financial resources, however, always be clear in your understanding that the end goal of your networking is to find what benefits you and helps you to succeed.

There are numerous business networks in existence, both online and offline, where members may share special privileges and benefits. For example, a network may encourage members to share or exchange services among one another within the network for reduced fees, in comparison to what is available to outsiders.

Some networks are more formal than others, sometimes having administrators who coordinate activities and events within the organization, enforce governing bylaws of the membership, or collect membership fees annually. Other networks may not actually conduct business within themselves, but serve to gather people of like interests and bring them together. Meet-up.com is one such business network, and allows its online members who share the same interests and location to actually meet face to face.

Now that we know what networking is and some of its benefits, let’s take a look at networking online, beginning with a quick glance at social networking.

Social Networking – The last two years have seen a substantial rise of social network activity and the growth of related sites such as YouTube, Facebook and MySpace among others.

Since its purchase by Google, YouTube, has continued to become an immensely popular success story. The site allows amateurs, with little knowledge of the web and no software to download to facilitate participation, and literally anyone with a camcorder or camera/video phone to upload personal videos online and make an impression.

YouTube started as a place for friends and families to share videos, but with time, businesses and entrepreneurs began to see the importance of using YouTube to facilitate marketing and business networking. At the close of whatever type of video, publishers simply embed links or other contact information for their businesses or websites. With the immense volume of traffic to YouTube, this has developed into an extremely effective tactic. Social network sites exemplify the concept of viral marketing at its best.

Let’s look at another example. Facebook is another hugely popular site where friends can share interests, information, sell goods and services to each other, upload photos and videos and even join existing networks. Businesses which join Facebook, enter a world of virtually limitless opportunities and potential leads. As a result of their activities, members can experience a phenomenal surge in traffic to their websites or businesses.

The most important thing to remember about the advantages of online networking is that you can position yourself and your business to benefit from worldwide contacts and relationships, the potential of which is immensely greater than that to which you may otherwise be exposed. And the results of those connections can develop exponentially within short periods of time.

One last thing. In dealing with online networking (where you may rarely have the opportunity of meeting your partners face-to-face), it is especially important to focus on three fundamentals of good business: professionalism, courtesy and great customer service.

Excellent customer service skills can mean the difference in whether or not your business is recommended or selected for a contract or project. It also leaves a lasting impression on the people with whom you come into contact, helping them to remember you. With numerous online sites and portals, many businesses are engaged in competition with one another, and what may very well be a distinguishing factor is customer service and courtesy.

A few tips for business networking:

1. Create A Website-If your main business is offline, create an online presence with a website featuring an easy means of contacting you. Most offline businesses have now realized the advantages of having an online presence. A very large proportion of business is now conducted online and people usually go online to research a company before they conduct any business with it. These days, without a business website, it is impossible to fully tap into the benefits of business networking.

2. Business Cards-It may seem an archaic concept, but business networking, even for online businesses, should not be confined to the Internet. In order to succeed in networking, a business representative should have business cards as part of their marketing plan, which contain the basic elements of the business’s contact information.

3. Be Skilled In Customer Service-As stated earlier, customer service can make or break a company. With numerous businesses competitors, a crucial aspect is customer service.

4. Join Social Networks Online-We cited Facebook, YouTube, and My Space as excellent sites to join in order to generate exposure to your business, and there are of course many others including common interest groups and forums.

Business networking is of utmost necessity if you are to grow your business in this immensely competitive environment. In many ways, the Internet has leveled the playing field so that small business organizations can effectively compete among each other, and against larger entities. Use this to your advantage. Create your own immense business webs. Spiderman has nothing on you.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learnings Are Changing Our Life

Last month, I was discussing with one of my customers. During the discussion, I found that Cloud and SaaS applications have changed the business landscape and helping Business Owners. Post Cloud ERP solution, my Customer was saving around USD 2000 per month by not having Hardware and it’s maintenance, IT Persons etc.

I was just wondering how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) could change the life of Business Owners and industry? Today we see them in every stages of our life, but can’t distinguish them separately. They are part of our life.

How AI and ML are disrupting the industry?

AI, in manufacturing industry along with IOT tools, is suggesting CNC Machines on what to produce, when to produce and how much to produce. This has improved the efficiency and usage of machines, manpower etc. The production line has become smooth without many surprises as the Demand and Supply are met by ERP and IOT as this decision information are passed to different touch points that would execute the same. Define a standard patterns and rest is done automatically. Hardware and its preventive maintenance are controlled and maintenance to AI, its Data Centre issues and maintenance are impacted.

AI and ML are changing the way we are buying items, doing Sales, Buying rental or selling houses etc. Even dating applications are helping many to match and find the right partners. AI and ML’s are controlling Amazon’s recommendation of book, Google’s suggesting right information or pushing Ads etc. Jobs market is shrinking. Lot of mundane work is replaced with technical tools.

AI and ML have improved the life of online shoppers with right messages, supporting information on the additional items etc. Now ML is automatically learns the user patterns and suggest what to purchase. These tools have helped many online eCommerce companies to target the products to right cohort of Customers and learn more about their purchase habits, when and where they can purchase etc.

Based on your “social” credit history few companies helps to get you Loans or ensure that you get housing etc (Ant Financials)

AI tools have disrupted Agriculture sector too. The activities that are too data sensitive, difficult to sit and analyse have been simplified now. Now we can measure and monitor crops yields, productivity, soil fertility and lack of nutrition etc. Many Agritech companies are depending on the AI and ML to feed the data back to algorithm and see what happens.

How our personal life is disrupted to make it simple?

Earlier, we use to hail for the taxies by roadside or call Taxi Companies to book a Taxi. Now we use Apps and no more hailing by the roadside. UBER, Ola, GoJek have changed the need to own a car and pay for the maintenance. Money saving is huge considering savings in car maintenance cost, insurance and parking charges etc. This reduced the traffic on the road and getting blocked during peak hours, saving millions of Dollars in fuels.

Google is releasing the Driverless Car economy. AI’s supervised learning helps to check the car movement; it’s surroundings, nearby cars or any other vehicles etc. This is helping to protect the passengers and other surrounding properties. Already UBER is talking about buying these cars for their fleets and also developing its own Driverless Cars.

AirBnB and Oyo have increased the quality of the hotel’s experiences, while prices are pushed down. OYO redefined the End users experience at Hotel by uplifting the standard of rooms and services. Guest is ensured to receive the same treatment across multiple hotels. Now a day customers are NOT checking Hotel name and its credibility etc. Customer is checking whether the hotel is qualified by OYO or not. That assures the quality and minimum standard of services.

Many large companies that don’t own any thing, but they are controlling the majority of our life

1. Uber, Ola – Car services company, that integrated the distributed taxies

2. AirBnB and Oyo – Helped to integrate the smaller hotels and increased customer experiences.

3. Google – Search engine and Ads

4. Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud – Provides the infrastructure to manage and run the applications at the fraction of original cost of buying a server.

So what is happening here?

Many IT Jobs are already suffering. Development tools are reducing the number of Developers required, Selenium like tools are replacing the Manual testing. We have built the tools that reduces the web application testing duration by 80%.

But the side effect of this is, many have lost jobs and income generation opportunities.

How Machine Learning works?

If you see the above business they don’t own any properties, but they control the activities as they use AI and ML that gives the information back to the application. One of the ways ML works is, it need a huge amount of transaction data to analyse and arrive at the patterns and learn from it.

To make the Machine learning’s Algorithm to work it requires a huge amount of data and feedback for it to create its own patterns, test, learn and deploy new ones. Many healthcare start-ups are using the AI and ML to scan the digitized the reports and it feeds the data to AI and its recreating the models to analyse.

How to Use LinkedIn to Build Your Business

1) When you have significant news in your business – for instance, a big product launch or a joint venture – use LinkedIn to notify your contacts by way of a profile update. And in your accompanying email message to the network, say “I would love to catch up with you – want to make time for a phone call?” It’s that keeping-up process that sparks conversations about opportunities both for you and your contacts. It’s in these conversations (which could be done by email, although probably not as well) that ideas will arise about prospective clients, partnerships, and other revenue-generating projects.

2) Use LinkedIn to understand the relationships between people you know and people you want to know. For me, this is the heart of LinkedIn’s value – the ability to see at a glance how people you don’t know, but would like to, are connected to people who are closer to you. So when you find Mr. Lofty Dude in the LI network and realize that he used to work with your former admin assistant – a data point you almost certainly wouldn’t have acquired on your own – you can reach out to the admin and get, not only an introduction, but some intelligence about Mr. Dude’s current dealings, needs, and hot buttons.

3) Connect, by all means, with your former colleagues from every company that has ever employed you. There is something about old-workmate ties (unless you, er, aren’t the sort that former teammates think of fondly) that can’t be duplicated in most relationships of shorter duration. Seek out these old workmates, tell them what you’re up to and who you’re most interested in meeting, and offer to help them out as well. One good lead would be worth the price of LI membership – oh wait, it’s free – or anyway worth the price of your time doing LI searching and connecting.

4) Let’s say that you would dearly like to work with General Motors, but you can’t find anyone at GM who seems especially suitable for contact as you search the LinkedIn database. No problem. Find a current GM vendor or customer in the functional area you’re interested in, and reach out to him or her. Is there something of value that you could offer in exchange for the introduction you want? In an ideal world, your sterling qualities and dazzling personality should convince this new acquaintance that introducing her client to you is something of value all by itself. But don’t bank on that. Offer to extend an invitation of your own, or design his or her new database, or something.

5) Use the LI database to understand more about your prospects. This is the beauty of LI – what other source will tell you where many or all of the senior execs of your prospect organizations used to work (given that only half a dozen of them have profiles on the company’s website)? Let’s say that you want to do some work for ABC Company. And lo and behold, half the ABC execs worked for PayPal back in the day and the other half worked for FedEx. Great intelligence! You see that they have a strong Notre Dame alum thing going on, and some connection to Stanford as well. Now you can use your FedEx and PayPal alum contacts, your Notre Dame folks and your Stanford fellows to help you get ‘over the wall.’

6) You wouldn’t email a complete stranger, even if you obtained his business card (say, by stealing the win-a-free-lunch goldfish bowl of business cards at P.F. Chang’s) to say “Hey, why not buy some stuff from me?” So please don’t reach out to new LI contacts by saying “Maybe you could help me make a new-business contact.” I wouldn’t recommend that. Instead, read this intended contact’s profile. Let’s say you are reaching out to me, who runs an online community. Two seconds of reading my profile would give you some ideas of things that might interest me. I guarantee that a typical working person could offer me something I’d be interested in. So, when you make your LI outreach, mention that thing that you could offer! Write “I would love to connect by phone, both because I’m interested in your relationship with [my most-desirable prospect company] and because I have great friends in the social networking community whom you should know.” Bingo.

7) Many people in the business community, especially avid networkers, have numerous connections that don’t do any [short-term, revenue-generating] good for them personally but that could be invaluable to their new networking contacts. Think about these valuable contacts as you reach out to people whom you hope might help you. For instance, I know lots of headhunters who have great media contacts – contacts I would drool over – journalists who regularly call them up for insights on the job market. Unfortunately, apart from occasionally mentioning in her stories that Joe Recruiter says that the job market is looking up, the journalist can’t do much for Joe – she isn’t going to write a profile on him any time soon, for instance. But she might write a profile on someone that Joe has just met through LI. Of course, Joe wouldn’t throw around her name carelessly – but he might say, “You know, I can’t guarantee anything, but for your kindness today I’d be happy to introduce you to my friend, an editor at the San Jose Mercury News, who might be interested to talk with you.” Rock on.

8) When you spot a cluster of people on LI who all know one another and are all accomplished in the same arena, that’s a really special thing. It means that a group of folks who perhaps worked together, or met online, or are part of a group together, represent a kind of mother lode of shared knowledge around a particular area – say, SEO or CRM or German opera. That’s huge, because jointly, these folks may comprise the lion’s share of the current thinking on the topic. You can reach out via LinkedIn to one of them, and say, “You know, I’m trying to get up to speed on the operas of Handel. Might I sent you an email message with some of my key questions, and ask whether you wouldn’t mind sharing your thoughts with me and also forwarding my message to your friend Jack Sprat, who could undoubtedly add a valuable perspective?” With luck, in the case of an inquiry like this, you are able to repay these experts’ valuable time with a gift of some kind (perhaps tickets to the opera). But many such people would refuse any compensation at all. It makes a huge difference how you present your situation and how graciously you pose your request. So much depends on good manners, doesn’t it?

9) LinkedIn in combination with Google News Alerts makes a great business tool. Let’s say you are looking to talk to folks at Fidelity who work in one product area. Use LI to find a name (or two or three names) of people at Fidelity who seem relevant to your situation, and whom you’d like to reach. Set up a Google News Alert on Fidelity, and set one up with the target person’s name (or a few names) so that you can learn when he or she has been quoted, is speaking on a panel, etc. This kind of intelligence will tell you what’s currently on the plate of this person, the issues he or she cares about, etc. What’s more flattering than an LI outreach message that says “I was so sorry to miss your speech at the Financial Muckety-Mucks Summit, but I was fortunate enough to read your thoughts on petro-dollars on Money.com and to catch your NPR interview last week.” Dang! Be diligent, but be careful that you don’t sound like a business stalker.

10) Vendors like to reach out to former clients, and that’s good, but it can be awkward when you haven’t kept up and have no idea what the former client is now up to. But of course, if you’ve got the contact info, thanks (let’s say) to Plaxo, you’re going to use it! LinkedIn solves the problem. Presto, you can track what your former client has been doing since you last saw him – no awkwardness. On top of that, instead of an open-ended “let’s catch up” message, you can say “Wow! You’re at Fidelity! You know, I see that you’ve only been in the job a few months, so we should definitely talk. It so happens that I’ve become something of an expert on Fidelity lately……” Now, that’s power networking!

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