Internet Home Business Ideas Blog

A Home Business or a Work from Home Job? What's the Difference?

2008-10-03T16:35:00.002+01:00

Many people want to make money from home and the internet is making that goal much easier to achieve. Before you start your research one thing that you should try and understand is the difference between a home business and a work from home job.

Now, let's take a look at a couple of the differences between home businesses and work at home jobs and how they could affect whether you make money or not.

People that are entrepreneurial by nature tend to do better running their own home business. They enjoy being their own boss and love the challenge of building something from the ground up. Having a business of your own from home is a great way to make money, however you have no guarantees of a paycheck on a steady basis.

This means that it is advisable to have some money saved or alternatively you may want to continue to work full time or part time while you work on your own business. Today telecommuting makes it possible for people to work from home for companies without actually going into an office to do it.

For example websites such as Tjobs.com match employers with employees who want to stay home and work. This is just one form of a work from home job that you can find. Other things you can do that are really more along the lines of a job to include data entry, typing at home, writing articles for people, creating graphics, answering the phone, and so on. You are not really building a business yet you are providing a skill that people will pay you for.

There are advantages to both having your own home business and a work from home job and it is worth baring these in mind when you make the decision whether to start a home business or a work from home job. The choice is strictly up to you!

Visit my legitimate business opportunities page for ideas on how to start a home business or a work from home job.

7 Work from Home Ideas

2008-09-01T14:04:00.001+01:00

Do you want to work from home? If you have a computer and an internet connection and you know how to surf the internet there are many opportunities open to you. Read on to find seven ideas for working at home.

1. Start an internet home business. There are many ways you can starting a home business of your own.

As an example, network marketing is a good way to get started making money online if you enjoy interacting with other people. The nice thing today is you can use the Internet to build a worldwide MLM business of your own.

2. Create a blog of your own. Blogging is extremely popular and an very achievable way to make money working from home.

For example you could start a blog with Blogger.com and add Google Adsense ads to it. Every time someone clicks on an ad you earn a commission. You can continue to monetize your blog with other products and make money when someone makes a purchase.

3. Write articles for others. Many people have started a blog and are having a hard time keeping up with it. This creates an ideal opportunity for you if you enjoy writing. You can offer your services as a writer and provide blog content for people. As you build up a clientele this can turn into a very lucrative full time career.

4. Become a virtual assistant. Many companies will pay you to stay at home and do things for them such as answer the phone, reply to emails, and provide customer service. You can do all of this while sitting on your sofa at home.

5. Do email marketing to your own list. Building an opt in list of people to email to is a very great way to work from home. As your list becomes larger and more refined you can make money selling products to it. This version requires some skills, but can also create a very long term secure income for you.

6. Affiliate marketing on the internet. Receiving a commission for selling other people's products is a lucrative and low risk way to make money from home. As an affiliate marketer you don't need any products, and you do not even need a website of your own as the affiliate merchant will provide everything for you.

7. Provide a service. If you have a talent you can make money working from home providing a service for people. These could include things such as dog walking, childcare, dress making, crafts etc.

These are just 7 working from home ideas that may appeal to you. If not, think about what hobbies and activities you enjoy doing and jot down some more ideas on how you could make money doing one of these things.

Get more ideas for Work at Home Jobs.

10 Things I can do now that I Work from Home Full Time

2008-08-30T11:59:00.001+01:00

What can you do now that you are a full time internet marketer?

There are lots of advantages of working at home full time. I didn't realise just how many until I became a full time work at home internet marketer :-)

Here are some things I can do that I could never do in the office:

(1) Start the day lying in bed in my jim jams drinking a nice big latte andanswering all my emails.
(2) Watch day time TV or a good film while I work
(5) Have a home beauty session while I work (face mask, foot moisturizing treatment, body wrap)
(4) Dance around the room like a mad woman when a good song comes on the radio
(5) Work in my underwear if I am feeling too hot (not often in Scotland)
(6) Work in the back garden on my laptop, in the sunshine while eating an ice lolly. (again not often in Scotland)
(7) Stand on my head for a few minutes when I feel sluggish and need some more blood circulation to the brain
(8) Go and say hello to the animals in the zoo round the corner when I am feeling lonely during the day
(9) have a large glass of vino in the afternoon if it all gets too much for me.
(10) Take the whole day off whenever I want because I am the boss.

Ok, so I don't do all of these things every day, but at least I know they are available tome when I feel like it!

What can you do now that you work from home full time or what do you want to do when you work from home full time?

A Guide to Choosing the Right Affiliate Program

2008-08-29T15:01:00.002+01:00

Choosing an affiliate program can be confusing. With so many affiliate networks, companies and products to choose from, how do you decide which affiliate products to promote?

Here are six things to consider when choosing an affiliate programs.

1. Initially you need to think about which niche you want to market. As there are so many affiliate programs to choose between it makes sense to think about the niche before you think about the product. Once you have found a profitable niche with customers who want to buy, you can then decide which affiliate programs to use.

2. You want to be sure that you are promoting affiliate programs that offer high quality products. One way to do that is to actually purchase the products you are going to sell.

You then create product review pages, and pre sell pages where you list your personal experiences about this product. This is an excellent way for you to promote the product and improve your sales.

3. You want to look at the commission percentage that you are going to get paid. If everything else is equal then you should go for the affiliate program that is offering the highest commission percentage. Often there can be big discrepencies between commissions paid by different affiliate programs. The percentage commission paid should be a big factor in your choice.

4. Be sure and read the affiliate agreement so you understand if there are any restrictions on how you can promote your affiliate product.

5. Find out how will you be paid. Affiliate merchants have different payment structures including how often they pay and how they pay. Many affiliate programs pay their affiliates via direct deposit into their bank account or by PayPal.

6. You also need to find out what sort of support you will receive from the affiliate program. Do they have a support helpdesk. What kind of tools will you be provided with to help sell the affiliate products?

You are looking for things such as banner ads, solo ads, email promotions, blog articles, signature file ads and so on. You should also take a good look at the affiliate program's website to ensure that you are happy with it before sending traffic to it.

In summary these are six things to consider when choosing an affiliate program. Even though most affiliate programs do not charge you to join, you want to be sure that you make a good choice as you will be investing your time and energy into promoting their products.

Learn more about Making Money from Affiliate Programs.

Make Money from Niche Marketing

2008-08-14T18:55:00.004+01:00

If you are a beginner online or if you have been trying to make money from a "home business" or "make money" website without success you may want to consider Niche marketing.

Niche Marketing is all about building a website for a particular niche, promoting that website and making money from affiliate programs, adsense, cost per action (CPA) or perhaps even your own product or service.

A niche can be a large or a small niche and could be a hobby, a sport that you like to watch or participate in, a place that you like to visit, or perhaps just something that you have an interest in.

Examples of niches are: playing tennis, dog training, Thai cookery, visiting Orlando, Hatha Yoga, 1960s movies, scrapbooking, improving golf, digital photography, becoming vegetarian, exercise for the over 50s, fly fishing, buying a home....

The possibilities are endless, but it makes sense to choose an area that you have a strong interest in. This way, you will find working on your website an enjoyable task rather than something you dread.

So how does someone go about getting started with Niche Marketing?

There are many things to think about including:

finding a niche
researching your niche
assessing the competition
researching your keywords
building your website
adding content to your website
monetizing your website
promoting your webaite

If you feel that this is a daunting task list or you don't have experience in all of these areas you may want to consider getting someone more experienced to help you out.

This is where the Niche Power Group comes in. Myself and 5 others who all make a full time income from home have got together and will take you by the hand and mentor you as you put together a niche website from scratch, or take your existing website into profitabilty. We can help kick start you into action and help you whenever you have a question or when the going gets tough!

To find out more just visit the Niche Power Group and register to be notified of a special offer when we launch in September 2008!

Advantages and Disadvantages of Working from Home

2008-08-11T20:10:00.002+01:00

Are you considering taking the plunge and working from home full time?

At the time of writing this I have been working from home full time for just over one year. Prior to that I spent 12 years working full time for a large company. Before I decided to work from home full time I had to consider carefully why I wanted to do this and what the advantages and disadvantages were going to be. Here are what I see as the main positives and negatives, based on my experience from both sides of the fence.

Disadvantages of Working from Home

(1) Lonelyness - if you are a people person like me, one thing you will probably miss most when you make the transition from full time work to working from home is contact with other people. At first I missed having people to talk to all the time and going for coffee and a chat each day with my coworkers. If you are working alone from home you just need to be sure to have some contact with others. You could do this by meeting people for a quick lunch, going to the gym during the day, arranging to meet friends more often in the evening, partnering with other people for certain parts of your business or joining a club.

(2) No Perks or Benefits - you may be used to having benefits such as medical insurance, bonuses, pension contributions and a car allowance. When you begin working for yourself from home full time you will lose these perks and benefits. For this reason you need to make sure that you are able to earn enough money to cover your existing salary and benefits if you need to.

(3) Never ending Workload and responsibility - as the owner of your own work from home business it may sometimes seem like the work is never ending. It is much easier for your working day to flow over into the evening and you could find yourself working much longer hours, especially in the beginning when you are struggling to make enough money. If something isn't working or if a crisis arises then you have the responsibility for fixing the problem.

Advantages of Working from Home

(1) Freedom - freedom is one of the biggest advantages of working for yourself. You can work the hours that you want to work rather than being in an office 9 till 5 every day. If you are not a morning person you can always have a long lie each day and start work a little later. If you need to go to an appointment in the middle of the day you don't need to ask the boss. If you want to spend time with the kids when they get home from school you can do this. If it is nice weather outside you can go out and sit in the garden for a while or even do some work outside... and so the list goes on!

(2) Earning Potential - as an employee you are usually constrained by grades and salary brackets. Your pay rises are normally decided by your boss and may be subject to budgets and sometimes company cutbacks. As the owner of your own business you have a huge potential to make a lot more money than you did as an employee and you can choose to pay yourself as much of this as you desire.

(3) Job satisfaction - when you are your own boss you can decide what work to do yourself and what to outsource. For example, if you don't enjoy doing the financial side of things you can outsource this. You can keep the work that you enjoy most for yourself and pay others to do the work that you enjoy the least. As an employee of a company you won't always have this luxury.

These are just some of the advantages and disadvantages of working from home. It certainly pays to consider these and other potential pros and cons before taking such a big step in life.

About the Author:

Suzanne is a full time work from home business owner. Visit one of her websites to read home business opportunity reviews

5 Free Money Making Ideas

2008-07-16T17:53:00.002+01:00

Are you looking for free money making ideas? If you have been surfing the internet looking for ways to make extra cash but keep on finding that every money making opportunity requires cash, then look no further.

Here are Five Easy Money Making Ideas:

(1) SFI - SFI is a fun, free to join business opportunity that allows you to earn money from selling a wide range of products OR referring other people OR displaying banners on your car and distributing fliers and more. One of the best things about SFI is that it also provides very easy to follow, comprehensive training to teach you how to make money online.

(2) CashCrate - Cashcrate is free to join and always free. You can make money from cashcrate either from filling out short surveys and questionnaires or from referring friends. There are lots of offers for people in the USA, the UK and other English speaking countries, but you can join and earn money regardless of where you live.

(3) Blogging and Affiliate Programs - Blogging is free to do and you can quickly and easily start a blog on any subject of your choice on blogger.com or wordpress.com and monetize your blog with free to join affiliate programs. When your visitors follow an affiliate link on your blog and purchase something, you will make money.

(4) Blogging and Google Adsense - This is similar to Blogging and Affiliate Programs, but instead of monetizing your blog with affiliate programs, monetize it with Google Adsense. Google Adsense will display text ads or banner ads that are relevant to the topic of your blog and you will get paid whenever someone clicks on an ad (they don't need to buy anything).

(5) The Home Income Team - the home income team is a free to join program that provides training on how to make money on the internet. It provides you with lots of free "splash" pages to advertise in traffic exchanges and elsewhere. When someone else joins the home income team through your splash page you can earn money from their actions or purchases.

These ideas won't give you instant money overnight and they are not "get rich quick" schemes, but they are genuine, free money making ideas that can earn you an additional income if you spend some time learning about them and working on them.

What is a Data Entry Job?

2008-07-09T20:34:00.003+01:00

What is a Data Entry Job? This is a question that a lot of online opportunity seekers ask.

A data entry job is one of the easiest ways for people to make money from home in their spare time and usually involves filling in forms or writing documents and earning a payment or commission.

Working at home doing data entry mean one of two things. It can either involve working for someone as a virtual assistant, helping with typing up documents and such like or purchasing access to a database of companies that hire data entry workers.

Here are some ideas on how you can find a legitimate data entry job that you can do from home.

1. TJobs.com has a specific category for data entry jobs. There are employers looking for employees to do various things such as data entry, customer service, claims processing, typing, and other things. Many data entry jobs can be done regardless of where in the world you live.

2. JobHunt.org provides online classified ads for various jobs. You can sort these by various characteristics including the locaton and title of the job. You may be able to find data entry jobs there that would suit your requirements and that of the employer as well.

3. There are plenty work at home websites on the internet which can also help you to find the right data entry job. Again we would caution you on paying to work for someone, but do expect to pay for information if you choose to buy it.

Data entry clerks should be able to type quickly, accurately, and be very detail oriented persons. You should also be the type of person that doesn't mind sitting in front of a computer for long periods of time.

Many people think that sounds like something they would like to do. Think carefully before you start looking for a data entry job. Is this something that you will enjoy doing and do you feel you can persevere with it to make money.

There are really lots of legitimate home business data entry clerk jobs available and you just need to know where to look. Hopefully this has given you the answer to the question "what is a data entry job?" and given you a few ideas to get started.

Find out more information about Home Business Data Entry Clerk Jobs.

Stay at Home Moms Business Opportunity

2008-06-29T16:41:00.001+01:00

There is no more noble profession than being a mom. Unfortunately in today's economy having more than one income is necessary. For this reason more mothers are looking for a stay at home business opportunity that allows them to manage their time and also make money.

Here is a possible opportunity that would allow you to work part-time at home as a mom and continue to be a full-time success in that fantastic career.

You should consider starting an Internet business of your own. The great thing about the Internet is it allows you to control your schedule so you can be there for your kids when you need to be.

There are many different ways to make money on the Internet. One of the most common ways that mothers are making money on the Internet today is to start their own affiliate marketing business.

As an affiliate marketer you get paid to sell other people's products, therefore you have a broad range of possible products to choose from.

Depending on the age of your kid, you might want to start an affiliate marketing business around the theme of babies, toddlers, kids, teenagers, or even college kids. You will be able to find products to sell and every one of these niches.

One thing that is beneficial about being an affiliate marketer is you never have to handle the product that you actually sell. You don't even have to collect the money. All of this is done for you by the affiliate merchant.

Your job is to market the affiliate product and sell it. This creates an excellent opportunity for moms to start their own home businesses because they can focus on being Internet marketers and not many of the other things that go with being a business owner in many instances.

When you have an Internet business it is working 24 hours a day even though you are not. It's more than possible to create a full-time income working part-time hours online.

You may find that you work best in the morning while before your kids get up. Some moms get more work done when the kids are off to school. And yet others are night owls and work best after everyone has gone to bed.

It really doesn't matter because as we say the Internet is open 24 hours a day and you are able to control your own schedule, when you have your own home business. The key is that on a part-time business finding the right stay at home moms business opportunity can equal full-time success for you.

About the Author:
Suzanne Morrison is a full time affiliate marketer and works from home on the internet. You can find the right Stay at Home Moms Business Opportunity for you on her website.

Avoiding Internet Scam Work from Home

2008-06-18T16:43:00.002+01:00

Are all work from home jobs scams? This is a question that many people ask every day when searching for a legitimate work from home opportunity. Fortunately the answer is "no". Most work from home jobs are not scams. Read on to learn how you can avoid internet scam work from home.

The best way to avoid internet and affiliate marketing scams is to learn about the type of scams that are possible on the Net. The saying, "Forewarned is forearmed" is perfectly applicable here. Only when you know what you should expect you would be able to avoid the pitfalls involved. Therefore, education on what types of scams have been identified until present is very important.

You Need To Play It Safe To Avoid Internet Marketing & Work from Home Scams

For best results, when you are in doubt about an affiliate program do not take the offer up. Most of us ignore the warnings that come from within us. All of us have an inner radar system that warns us loud and clear when something is just not right. However, most people learn to suppress this warning signal often with disastrous results. Therefore, the first thing is to listen your gut feeling. If you get "that feeling" drop the offer.

To be doubly sure, go for only those affiliate programs and business opportunities which have been recommended by close friends (who have already tried and tested it) or affiliates which have been around for at least five year and gained a positive reputation in the market.

Stick with the big named Marketers as besides security, these affiliate programs are likely to give you the best terms you could get, plus a free website and some tools.

The Most Popular Affiliate Marketing Scams

1. Greed is the main helper of affiliate marketing scams. Greed and need make a person blind to reason and this is how most affiliate scams operate. They paint a rosy picture where they make earning money look like child’s play. They make false claims about amazing sums of money which make you feel greedy for the income. In that moment you got that feeling, you are captured by the affiliate marketing scam. In case you do think the affiliate which promises you riches overnight is genuine, just run a search on the Internet and see whether this company is registered with BBB (Better Business Bureau); if not, do not trust it.

2. Desperation is the next helper for the fraudulent Marketer. Are you in need of cash urgently? Do you want continuous streams of income without any effort? Do you want to quit your job and work from home? These are the questions to which each one of us have positive answers. When you are down on cash or suffocated by your job, be very careful on what advertisement you believe and choose to try. It is possible you are stepping into a trap of affiliate marketing scams which instead of giving you money, would demand whatever little money you have remaining on you.

3. Money begets money. Most of us believe in this adage and we feel that if the investment has good prospects, you should make a payment. However, some scams imply that if you want a large payout you need to invest a lot. The problem is that the moment you make an investment, they disappear. Do not pay any large sum of money on the Internet in the hope you will get more. In fact, qualitative affiliate programs would enroll you without any payment, while they would host your website for free and also provide you the latest tools to market the product.

If you are careful and do your research you will be able to choose only the good affiliate programs that are out there and sidestep the affiliate marketing scams of which there are plenty.

About the Author:
Suzanne Morrison is the webmaster of the Internet Business Ideas Website She tests each of the programs mentioned on her website personally before recommending them. For a full list of her tried and tested scam free home businesses have a look at her list of legitimate home businesses

Over $600 of Mike Filsaime's Products for Free

2008-06-10T22:05:00.004+01:00

I always like a good freebie, especially one that is delivered to my door, rather than downloaded to my computer!!

For a very limited time Mike Filsaime is giving away over $600 of goodies for free.

This includes his 85 page spiral bound "7 Figure Secrets" report, shipped directly to your door, worth $297 and his famous Butterfly Marketing Manuscript worth $97 (plus other goodies).

To get these products all you need to do is visit the 7 Figure Secret Website and register. You will need to pay a small fee for shipping ($7.99), but the value of these products will certainly outweigh this fee!

Here is a summary of what you will get (for FREE)
- The 7 Figure Secrets Printed and Shipped to you Door ($297)
- The 18 Full Color Process Maps ($197)
- The Butterfly Marketing Manuscript Version 2.0 ($97)
- Marketing.com magazine delivered to your door ($29.95)

I registered to receive these products yesterday, but you will need to hurry as Mike can only give a limited number of these products away.

Get Paid for Taking Free Online Surveys

2008-06-05T00:04:00.002+01:00

Do you want to get paid for taking free online surveys?

It doesn't matter who you are - as long as you have access to an internet connecton and a computer it is easy to get paid for taking free online surveys.

One of the best ways to do this is to sign up with a company such as Maximum Paid Surveys.

Maximum Paid Surveys is basically a big database full of paid opportunities. By joining them you will get instant access to a massive resource of over 760 paid surveys and mystery shopping companies.

Maximum Paid Surveys also has a very straightforward and easy to navigate website and it is not difficult to quickly find the companies that work in your own country and/or state.

You can search for a wide variety of assignments including online surveys, focus groups or mystery shopping jobs or search based on what kind of reward yo want to get. The most active and the best paying companies are listed first so you can get into profit quickly. New paid survey companies are added regularly to the database so there is no worry about using an out of date list.

Maximum Paid Surveys also has a very good customer support facility and you will find it easy to get started with your new paid survey business by using their step-by-step guides including a Paid surveys introduction guide, a mystery shopping introduction guide and more.

New members also get access to some excellent bonuses. These include additional get paid databases, work at home ebooks and more.

In summary, Maximum Paid Surveys has everything you need to start getting paid for taking free online surveys. From a larhe collection of online surveys, focus groups and mystery shopping jobs to a state-of-the-art website and an excellent documentation and customer suppport. For a limited time you can get a 56% discount. Don't wait!

Get Paid for taking free online surveys now and join Maximum Paid Surveys.

How to Get a Better Search Engine Ranking

2008-05-21T16:52:00.001+01:00

The success of your home business is mostly dependent upon your visibility on the Internet. What does this mean? Let me explain...

When you or any other person searches for something on the Internet, they choose three to four words or keyword phrases and type these in a search engine browser. When you do this, many web pages containing the keywords you searched on are displayed. Often the results returned may include hundreds, thousands or even millions of pages.

Web sites that rank on the first couple pages get a tremendous amount of exposure to web searchers because the majority of people simply will not continue to review results past the 2nd or 3rd page.

This is one of the main reasons why you need to consider ways to improve your search engine rankings if you are serious about owning a successful web site.

Here are some simple tips that can improve your search engine rank quickly

1. Keywords are very important and the very first stepping stone in achieving SEO (search engine optimization) is choosing the right keywords to optimize your site. There are many popular keyword search tools for this purpose that will help you to find hundreds of potential keyword phrases. Aim to choose keywords that have a good number of daily searches, but are not so competitive that it will be difficult to achive a high search engine rank. Wordtracker is an excellent tool to use for this purpose.

2. Position your keywords in the right places on your web page. A better search engine rank can be achieved if the main keywords are placed in areas such as the title tag, in the main heading and subheading tags, throughout the body of your web pages and the alt attribute of image text. It can also help if your keywords are in the domain name.

3. Content is king and in order to have your page achieve a good search engine rank, you need to write (or purchase) fresh original content. When your website's content is updated regularly the search engine spiders will return more regularly and index the pages on your website website. Ensure that your content is exceptional so that not only the search engines like it, but people do as well.

4. Obtaining links from content relevant websites is essential and can have an extremely significant impact on your search engine ranking. Your website's popularity is measured by the importance and number of other similar and established websites that link to your website. The more websites linking out to you, the higher your website will climb in the seach engine rankings.
You can also build backlinks by joining different discussion forums and communities which relate to your website, distributing articles with an author resource box linking to your website, submitting your site to directories, commenting on websites and blogs and exchanging links with other webmasters..

These are just some of the ways that can help you to get a better search engine ranking. You need to understand that SEO is a must if you want good, targeted, free traffic to your website.

Before you call in experts, remember that most of the SEO techniques you can learn and do yourself. If you do call in SEO experts be prepared to pay quite a bit of money.

Get more tips on How to get a Higher Search Engine Rank

Learn how to be Successful on Ebay with PlanetSMS Monthly

2008-04-28T14:17:00.004+01:00

PlanetSMS Monthly by John Thornhill is a new mentoring program with a difference

Many new online marketers are joining programs and sites that claim to 'mentor' people to success, So is PlanetSMS Digital Monthly Mentorship any different to so many that don't provide value, Or is is one of the few that do?

I may be slightly biased in favour of this program - because I have bought products from John Thornhill in the past and he always over delivers and offers great support for those, You might want to check some of his products such as Auction Profit Streams to get an idea of the quality of his products before commiting to a monthly fee...

The first thing I noted from reading his site is that John Thornhill, known on ebay as planetsms, isn't just promoting it as another 'make money from ebay' type of product. He does use his Ebay id as part of his credentials as a person qualified to teach others, as well as the fact that he has authored some best selling ebooks and is an ebay powerseller.

What he says about 'the secret to success' being to follow someone who is successful at internet marketing can't be argued with, (provided they are teaching what they know and do to make money on the internet)

This monthly membership goes a lot further than just the mention of selling on ebay though.It claims to teach exactly what John does to generate multiple streams of income from the internet marketing arena in general.

What is included in the membership?

Audio/Video Training - to show and 'walk us through' what he does and the strategies he employs.

A Digital Newsletter Delivered to Your Inbox Each Month - in which he reveals methods he actually uses to make money, and admits many of them are not just from ebay.

The Tools Required to Help You Succeed - he includes in the package the tools and private label/ brandable material he says will be needed for some one to start their own online income.

A Monthly Question and Answer session - this promises to answer any marketing related questions

The Opportunity to Get Personal Help - offering to have direct contact with subscribers/members to help them where needed (but only on a limited number basis) - so I would assume this may be removed at some point?

And Also - Almost Guaranteed Income. Where he is offering to promote members products to his subscriber base, in order to help generate them some sale. (I note he does have some small print in there - only promising to promote appropriate products)This presumably covers him against any obligation to promote poor quality or non related products?

Finally his price for membership is set at $10 per month. (this is where I believe he differentiates himself from many mentoring programs I have seen - most go for the higher end price ticket - this does seem exceptional value if he lives up to his claims) For which he also offers a money back guarantee. (presumably with it being a clickbank product - he will have had to offer such a guarantee) Never the less it is comforting that one can 'Try' him out without risk or fear of loss, knowing that if he doesn't provide quality and value he would soon be out of pocket.

See the site for more details

So that's the sales page and claims outlined, with a few comments from myself where appropriate. As a brand new service - time will tell if he continues to provide value...But I can say this much - I have had access to his first Video Newsletter and can confirm that he does go into great detail of a strategy he is currently using. He gives details of exactly how to set it up for maximum profit, with a step by step follow along video that any new marketer could easily follow. Clear and simple and with a full explanation of where he did what he did, how to do the same etc.

He then went further than expected and showed exactly how much income and sales this strategy provided from his own business and also for comparison, a new marketer with a smaller list and less experience and no product of his own.

I do believe this will help many and was sufficient to justify the first months subscription without any of the other benefits quoted.

I genuinely believe this could be a valuable resource and it certainly looks as though planetsms digital monthly mentorship will be a keeper for me.

My recommendation would be to join and try it out. with the money back guarantee the small $10 risk is removed. I believe new and intermediate marketers will find value and benefit in the first issue.

Visit PlanetSMS Monthly Mentorship for more information.

Please feel free to post your comments if you found this review useful.

Where have I been for the last couple of months?

2008-04-03T19:20:00.004+01:00

I have been neglecting my blog over the last couple of months for various reasons. In February I had the misfortune of being selected for jury duty, which ended up lasting almost 6 weeks, then the accused decided to plead guilty! A wasted 6 weeks for me, especially since I am fully self employed and prefer to spend my days working online! After that I had a week of fun and shopping in Orlando.

I have also been involved in numerous new projects over the last couple of months which have been taking up a most of my time.

My friend Ken Troyer launched the PIPS Power Group back in February. This is a membership site that provides online coaching and training for owners of the Plug-In Profit Site and I am one of the six mentors. We provide our members with personal coaching via an online forum, lots of bonuses including phone consultations, discounts on co-ops and services, free ebooks and reports, a step by step plan of action for success and we also try out products and services to save our members wasting money on things that may not work. If you have ever fancied being coached to success online then pay a visit to the PIPS Power Group to see what other members are saying about it. You will also be surprised at how affordable our coaching is.

Another project I have been working on, which is also related to the Plug-In Profit Site is Website Update Services. On this website I provide affordable website customizations and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) services.

All of this has kept me very busy, but hasn't given me much of a chance to update my blogs ona regular basis. This is all going to change and I hope to be back to blogging normality from now on!

How to Create a 301 Redirect

2008-03-21T16:28:00.003Z

For SEO purposes you may want to ensure that if someone types in the URL of your website without the "www", that it will redirect to the URL with the "www". E.g. I may want to redirect http://homebiz-direct.com to http://www.homebiz-direct.com

This will ensure that search engines see each of these links as the same and may boost your link popularity.

It is quite easy to make this change. All you need to do is edit your .htaccess file. This file can be found in the main directory on your web server.

Just add the following four lines to this file:

For a 301 redirect you will need to edit your .htaccess file. This can be found in your webepanel in the file manager (or in the main directory if you are uploading by ftp).

Edit this file and add the following lines to it:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourwebsite.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourwebsite.com/$1 [L,R=301]

In each case replace yourwebsite.com with your own domain name. The third line does not have the "www" but the fourth line does.

Happy New Year and Making Money with Autoresponders

2008-01-03T23:44:00.000Z

Happy New Year! It's the 3rd of January and I am still recovering from the all the New Year celebrations! To save me thinking for myself today, here is a guest article from Stone Evans, otherwise known as the Home Biz Guy. In this article you can find out how to use autoresponders to make you money on autopilot.

The Home Business Marketing Strategy That Has Never Failed
Copyright © Stone Evans, The Home Biz Guy
Plug-In Profit Site

Today I'd like to share with you the strategy I used when I first got online many years ago to generate automated income from home. This strategy still works today. You can use it to sell your own products or you can use it to sell other people's products as an affiliate or partner. It can work in practically any niche market.

The theory is simple. Build a list of people who have given you permission to email them about a particular topic and then send relevant information and special offers to those people promoting products and services that you are selling. This is a very easy way to make money.

The first thing you need to do this is a tool called an autoresponder. An autoresponder is simply a tool that collects subscribers for you and gives you the ability to email those people in mass. For example, with an autoresponder you can type an email message saying anything you want, load it into a field that looks just like the text area you type any normal email into, click Send, and your message will be delivered to all your subscribers instantly addressing each one on a first name basis. This could be just 10 people or it could be thousands, even millions.

When you use an autoresponder to send a message promoting a product you are selling to a targeted group of subscribers, you have a very good chance of making sales if what you are offering is something that your subscriber database is interested in.

From my point of view, a lot of the information and systems available online which try to help people make money are over-complicated and often mis-guided. The same simple formula for making money online that worked for me (someone with no previous experience) almost 10 years ago is still working today and it's very, very simple to apply. In fact, I'll walk you through the steps I use (and so do many, many others) to pull in automatic profits 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year like clockwork.

The first thing you need is an autoresponder. You don't even need your own website for this. There are many good autoresponders on the market. One that I use is called GetResponse which you can take a look at:
http://www.freegetresponse.com/

This is the autoresponder I use to deliver my Home Business Secrets Mini-Course at:
Plug-In Profit Site

As you'll see if you subscribe at the site above, my free mini-course will be delivered to you automatically by email as if it's written to you personally. This takes no effort from me (other than writing the messages in the first place) to deliver this mini-course to you and thousands of other valued subscribers using an autoresponder.Another autoresponder I use is called AutoResponse Plus. You can check it out at:
http://www.autoresponse-plus.com/

The difference between GetResponse and AutoResponse Plus is that GetResponse does not require you to have hosting. It's hosted for you. AutoResponse Plus requires you to have your own hosting account where the company will install the software for you directly. Also, when it comes to building a mailing list, GetResponse provides an in-house service to build your mailing list for you called Get Subscribers which you can see at:
http://www.getsubscribers.com/

If you are using AutoResponse Plus, you would need to use a third-party service such as List Builder Pro to build your mailing list:
http://www.prolistbuilder.com/

This brings me to the next step of the process of making money on autopilot with an autoresponder. You need subscribers. The fastest way to build a permission-based list of subscribers of people who are interested in what you have to offer is called co-registration. That's what the Get Subscribers and List Builder Pro services provide. All the details about how these work can be found at:
http://www.getsubscribers.com/ and http://www.prolistbuilder.com/ respectively.

Once you know about these services, the steps to make money online are really very simple.

Step 1) Get an autoresponder.

My 2 favorite autoresponders are:
1. GetResponse: http://www.freegetresponse.com/
2. AutoResponse Plus: http://www.autoresponse-plus.com/

Step 2) Order subscribers.Here's 2 reputable co-registration services:
1. Get Subscribers: http://www.getsubscribers.com/ (works exclusively with GetResponse)
2. List Builder Pro: http://www.prolistbuilder.com/ (works with AutoResponse Plus and most other autoresponder in the market, not GetResponse though)

Both of these service can be setup to add subscribers to your autoresponder automatically without you needing to lift a finger. Just go through the guided setup process when placing your order and they will take care of the rest.

Step 3) Make an offer.
Send valuable information and special offers to your subscribers on a regular basis. This is a simple process for making money on autopilot that has never failed me.

In the beginning, I didn't have a lot of money to invest in advertising. That was a good thing. It forced my mind to think about and discover what technique had the lowest risk associated with it. You see, I figured that if I purchased 500 co-registration subscribers, all of these people were mine to contact as often as I wanted until they either bought something from me or unsubscribed. So in the case of Get Subscribers, today I need to pay $189.95 to get 500 guaranteed subscribers. That's 500 people who have given me permission to email them as often as I want. Do you see how powerful this is?

In my niche market, I promote home business products, services and opportunities as an affiliate which all pay very generous commissions. If I email my list of 500 people a few times and just get 5 (1%) of them to sign up for one of the products or programs I promote, I've already made a profit. But the real beauty of this type of advertising is that even after I've made a profit on my initial investment, I still have my complete list of subscribers (minus the few that have unsubscribed) to continue emailing, building a relationship with and promoting different products to. If I'm even the slightest bit creative and consistent with sending offers to my list, I can make a small fortune with this single asset.

What I've described above is EXACTLY how I started making money online many years ago and how I still earn a healthy percentage of my money today.

Maybe you're thinking that setting up an autoresponder and building a list is easy, but you don't know what to email to your list to make money. If that's the case, I invite you to consider that nearly every affiliate program or business opportunity you can join provides pre-written email marketing letters that you can simply copy and send to your list. In most cases, these letters are proven sellers which is why the affiliate programs and business opportunities provide them to you. They have tested them and experienced positive results already.

That said, in my own experience, I usually find that I can get improved results with letters I write myself to my list when I am sincere and offer my own personality, point of view and value to an offer I am promoting.

But the bottom line here is that making money online can be very simple. You don't even need to have your own website, you don't need to attend any seminar or buy any expensive marketing courses, or pay for one-on-one personal coaching, etc. You just need to look around and watch what other people (the big dogs) are doing to make their money.

In most cases, they are simply building list and emailing that list special offers and announcements to promote products that generate revenue for them. Instead of being on the receiving end of this one-way marketing barrage, put yourself on the delivering end of the emails and receiving end of the commission checks and bank deposits that arrive when you setup your own autopilot online marketing system.

All you need is an autoresponder, subscribers and an offer.

What are you waiting for? You can do it!

About the Author:
------------------------------------------------------------
If you don't want to do it all yourself, The Home Biz Guy can setup your autoresponder for you and load it with that same pre-written email marketing campaign he uses to pull in automatic profits with 24/7/365. All you need to do at that point is supply the subscribers. Complete details and signup instructions are available for you now at: Plug-In Profit Site

Has 2007 Been a Good Year for your Business?

2007-12-31T17:30:00.000Z

It's New Year's Eve, or Hogmany as we call it here in Scotland. Before I venture out to celebrate the bells or the arrival of 2008 I am reflecting for a few moments on the successes of 2007.

I prefer to look forward rather than back, but it is always good to reflect a little bit and take pride in your successes.

I decided to do a little bit of looking back on my internet business revenue over the last two years. I checked my spreadsheets and compared each month of 2007 with the same month in 2008. I am pleased to say that I hadn't actually realised just how much my business has grown over the last year. My revenue for each month in 2007 exceeded the revenue of 2006 by an average of 50%. In some months I actually made 100% more than I did in the same month of 2006, but the average was 50%.

I also quit my day job in May of 2007 and on a personal note, got married in October of this year, so it has been quite a good year.

I am not a fan of new year's resolutions, but my main business goal of 2008 will be to increase my monthly revenue by at least 50% by mid 2008.

I can now head out to my party in Edinburgh feeling good about the achievements of 2007 and looking forward to an even better year in 2008!

Free Multi Media Course on Blogging

2007-12-21T13:03:00.001Z

I'm evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they're letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

The best blogging techniques.
How to get traffic to your blog.
How to turn your blog into money.

I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it's still free.

PPP - Pay Per Play - a new way to make money from your website

2007-12-17T19:12:00.000Z

You will have no doubt heard of PPC which stands for "pay per click" (e.g. Google Adsense) and perhaps PPA, which is pay per action, but what PPP, which stands for "Pay Per Play".

This is a brand new way of advertising and a great way for webmasters or bloggers to make money from their website or blog. It is similar to TV advertising or radio advertising and is launching in February 2008.

Basically it allows advertisers to get their 5 second audio ads played on a huge number of targeted websites around the world. For us webmasters and bloggers it allows us to earn money on 100% of our website traffic as we will receive a payment for every audio ad that is played on our site.

The ads are short (5 seconds), will be related to the content of your website and they will only be played once per visitor.

If you would like to learn more you can sign up for pay per play ads now and get ready for the launch in February 08.

Review of Success University

2007-12-10T14:15:00.001Z

Are you considering joining Success University either for self improvement or to make an income online? If so, read on to find out more about what Success University has to offer and make the decision on whether or not it is the right program for you.

What is Success University?

Success University is a personal development membership site and a business opportunity. You can join Success University and get immediate access to a huge library of multi media training and personal development courses and you will have the opportunity to make potentially huge commissions by referring other people to Success University.

As a Member, What Sort of Training Courses to I Have Access to?

The training courses in the member center are continuously being updated and enhanced, with new courses being added on a regular basis. At the time of writing this review, there are over 120 different multimedia courses in the areas of motivation, personal development, finance, internet marketing, sales, leadership, real estate, network marketing and communication. Each course has around 20 lessons lasting between half an hour and 1.5 hours. Here is a small selection of what is available:

Your Goal Mind (by Cyndi McDonald)
17 Ways To Look and Feel Younger in 30 Days (by Christopher Guerriero)
Conquer Fear (by Lisa Jimenez)
Creating a Powerful Appearance (by Linda Thomas)
How Pay Per Click Advertising Works (by Mike Filsaime)
Ten Commandments of Real Estate Investing (by William Bronchick)
The Art of Effective Communication (by Nido R Qubein)
Train Wreck to Triumph (by Teri Werner)
The Fine Art of Small Talk (by Debra Fine)
Street Smart Network Marketing (by Robert Butwin)
Take Charge, Get Results (by George Morse)
Food Combining for Health and Longevity (by Dr. Wayne Pickering)
Making a difference - 12 qualities that make you a leader (by Dr Sheila Murray Bethel )
Secrets of a Sales Superstar (by Brian Tracy)
Increasing Your Memory (by Ron White)
The Soul of Winning (by Byrd Baggett)
Triggers (by Joe Sugarman)

This is just a selection of the courses available, but hopefully you get the idea.

What can I Earn with Success University?

As long as you can personally refer two other members you can start earning commission in your first month, from a combination of your own referrals and the referrals of those above you and below you.

The commission plan is a binary and impossible to explain in a few sentences, but you are looking at around $30ish per six people in your organisation (including people sponsored by your upline and downline) + various bonuses.

There are lots of FAQs and a training call which explain the commission structure in more detail. How do I Get Paid? If you are in the USA, Canada or Mexico you will receive a check by mail. International affiliates like myself receive a cash card which can be used in cash machines round the world. Commissions are paid both weekly and monthly.

How Much Does it Cost to Join Success University?

The monthly cost is $55.90. This includes full access to all the courses mentioned above, training, the ability to earn commission and a physical package in the mail every month (for all students worldwide) with a newsletter and a CD.

If you are unsure of whether or not Success University is for you you can sign up for a $2 trial. The $2 is donated to charity.

This trial gives you access to the member center for a full two weeks and you can cancel at any time if you decide that it is not right for you.

Am I Tied in for a Specific Number of Months?

No, you can quit at the end of the two week trial, at the end of a few weeks, a few months or a few years. You are not tied in in any way.

What about Training and Support for Promoting SU?

There's an email training bootcamp and a getting started checklist for when you join initially. There are also regular training and marketing calls, a weekly faculty call, a support helpdesk and lots of marketing materials such as banners and email ads. All the calls are recorded so you can access them at a later date if the time doesn't suit you.

How can I Join Success University?

Just visit Success University to join or sign up for the $2 Two Week Trial here.

You may also be interested in viewing my Success University Special Offer.

Earn Money While Doing Christmas Shopping

2007-12-05T21:24:00.000Z

I hope that you are well and enjoying the run up to the festive season! Every year I say to myself "I'm going to do all my Christmas shopping online and avoid the mad shopping rush!" but so far I have never managed.

This year is going to be different!

This is just a quick post to let you about a way you can earn money while doing your Christmas shopping (or any shopping for that matter!). It's called My Power Mall and it is completely free to join. If you live in the USA you'll earn a 2-55% rebate from all your online shopping and if you live elsewhere you can earn money by referring others.

Just click below to find out more:

My Power Mall

Hope you have a relaxing and enjoyable holiday season!

Making Money with Affiliate Programs

2007-10-19T23:20:00.001+01:00

The quickest and most efficient way to earn money online is through affiliate programs. Affiliate programs offer a lot for people who want to start earning some income on the internet with little risk. One of the big advantages is that the majority of affiliate programs do no require any enrollment fees. Simply sign up and you can start promoting the affiliate merchant’s products immediately.

With affiliate programs, it is possible to earn an income almost instantly. Choose an affiliate program, pre-sell the program’s products, and once you refer a person who becomes a paying customer, you will earn some stated commission. The most important part of affiliate marketing is pre-selling. Pre-selling is very different from actually selling the goods. You don’t have to setup a sales page or a payment processing system and you won’t have to worry about the delivery of the product or with refunds. These resonsibilities are met by the affiliate merchant.

All you have to do is to promote the products and lead people to the affiliate merchant’s sales page via your affiliate link. The affiliate merchant will take care of the rest.

Here are some of the steps you will need to take to start earning from affiliate programs:

1. Enrol with the affiliate program
Select the best affiliate program for your needs. Choose affiliate programs that have:
- hot selling products in their inventories. This will make your job easier.
- a good standing in the industry. Do they pay well? Do they pay on time? Do they provide enough support for their affiliates?
- a good pay rate. Affiliate programs pay in the range of 5 to 95% of the sales to their affiliates. But a high commission scheme shouldn’t be your only consideration. After all, what will you do with 95% of the selling price if the affiliate program’s products are not really sellable?
- a suitable payment method. Some affiliate programs have preferred payment processors which may or may not be amenable to your means. Check beforehand if you can actually receive payments from the program. If not, inquire if special arrangements can be made on your behalf.

2. Get your affiliate link
Your affiliate link is the link that you will have to promote to potantial customers. These potential customers will HAVE to click on your affiliate link to be taken to the affiliate merchant’s sales page. It is important that online users will click on your affiliate link, because this is what will inform the affiliate program’s system that a particular visitor was referred by your campaign, and in the event that such a visitor will decide to make a purchase, the appropriate commission should be granted to you.

3. Promote your affiliate link
There are many, many ways by which you can promote your affiliate links. There are hundreds of internet marketing techniques you can explore to maximize the exposure of your affiliate links so that you can achieve the highest number of visitors possible. Remember, it’s a numbers’ game. The more visitors you can lead to the affiliate merchant’s sales page, the more chances you’ll have of referring a successful customer and bagging some commissions.

Remember that you are not limited to a single affiliate program. You can join as many affiliate programs as you like, with each affiliate link providing an income stream for your benefit.

Find out about some of the most popular affiliate programs and affiliate networks.

How I make Money Online

2007-10-07T20:50:00.000+01:00

A few people have been asking me recently how I make my money online.

I think it is very important to diversify your income streams once you start making money online and try to make sure that you don't have all your eggs in the one basket.

For example:
- Try not to rely on a single business opportunity for all your income
- Try not to rely on a single website for all your income
- Try not to rely on a single source of traffic to your website

At the moment I generate my online income from a variety of different sources. These include:

Each of the individual programs listed about brings me between $50 - $800 commission every month. Success University is the biggest payer, followed by Leisure Audio books, Empowerism and Host4Profit.

To show that I am not making this up I have taken some photographs of a few of my recent checks and some screenshots of my income for some of the above programs. You can view these here:

The beauty of many of these programs is that they provide residual income. For example if I sell web hosting one month, I receive commissions every month for that one sale until the customer cancels their hosting account.

Getting a Top 10 Ranking in Google

2007-09-16T15:28:00.000+01:00

Here is an article by James Martell explaining how to get a top 10 ranking in Google and maintain that ranking.

You Can Gain and Maintain "Top 10 Rankings" at Google with a Proven Systematic Approach to 'Inbound Link' Development

FREE "SEO for NON-TECHIES" MP3 Mini-Course Offers A Systematic Approach to Developing Inbound Links

If you’re like most webmasters, you find yourself hopelessly confused about what it takes to get “top 10 rankings” with Google and the other search engines.

That’s because the search engines of today, especially Google, have evolved and simply using old search engine optimization strategies is like banging your head against the wall.

Worry not. There is some good news here. In fact, it’s easier than ever today to achieve a top 10 ranking at the search engines. You simply have to know what to do and how to go about it.

You see, the key to search engine success is to utilize a systematic effort to develop inbound links to your website and then make it an ongoing part of your business.

The search engines determine where pages on your site reside by analyzing the backlinks, also known as inbound links, to that page. These backlinks are absolutely critical if you want your site to obtain top 10 rankings, where it will be seen by a targeted, qualified audience that is already searching for your information and your products.

And, contrary to popular belief among webmasters, keyword density is not the way to climb the search engine ladder. In fact, using too many keywords can get you into hot water with the search engines and cause your site to be pushed down the search engine ladder and not up!

This point is worth repeating: It’s a false assumption that keyword density is the catalyst for higher search engine rankings.

The truth is that search engines now look very little at the keywords on your page when determining where a page ranks, but instead place much more weight on the other pages where links to your site reside.

This means that the inbound links to your website are constantly being analyzed by Google and the other search engines and if they are on pages of little or no value, the search engines simply don’t give your site “credit” for these links; hence, they are practically useless.

Of course, if you’re like most webmasters, this comes as a complete surprise. Or, if this is something you understand, you may be unsure about how to get quality inbound links and find yourself scratching your head in utter dismay.

In a nutshell, it’s like this: every other site that links to you is like a favourable vote or nod of approval to the search engines, attesting to your site’s credibility and overall trustworthiness. This explains why, for a page to be considered valuable (and be ranked high) by Google or the other search engines, it must first prove itself by having other high-ranking sites link to it.

These links are just "votes" in your sites favor.

Putting this to Work For You: 5 Things You Must Know

To get more traffic to your website and achieve the top 10 rankings every Webmaster is looking for, your site’s pages must:

Showcase content that is well-researched, well-written and provides valuable
information to the visitor;
Lead off with a strong headline that piques your site visitor’s interest (and includes
keywords you want that page to rank for);
Boast keyword-rich title tags (once in your browser, look in the top left corner
of your screen to see the title tag, which should include the keyword you
want the page to rank for each page);

Include accurate, detailed 25-30-word META descriptions that explain exactly what
the page is about; and

Have quality inbound links pointing back to it from high-ranking sites that the search engines already know and trust.

You can easily achieve all five of these, and develop your own successful inbound link building campaign one of two ways by simply following the directions outlined a my new "SEO for Non-Techies" mp3 mini-course which is available free of charge.

Delivered directly to your inbox every day for six days, allowing you to listen to it on-the-go, while on your commute to and from the office, while you workout at the gym or even as you relax at your home desktop, this informative free course was created for webmasters with little time and little technical skills.

As other Webmasters have found, you can expect SEO for Non-Techies audio course to really cut through the clutter and the hype associated with search engine optimization and provide you with a proven step-by-step strategy that, when implemented, can be counted on to help your website achieve top 10 rankings from the search engines.

The mp3 mini-course really simplifies the steps of ON-page and OFF-page optimization, and shows exactly how you can gather trusted backlinks to your website, saving you immeasurable amounts of time, money, and frustration.

The "Do It Yourself SEO" for NON-TECHIES mp3 mini-course is the perfect solution for the webmaster who is comfortable learning from audio instruction and, while most webmasters find this teaching solution to be enough, those webmasters who prefer a more interactive, classroom-style approach turn to the online Backlinks Workshop for a more interactive, more hands-on approach.

The Backlinks Workshop allows webmasters to work with me directly live and in-person via my engaging, full-color, media-rich online conference room to better understand my proven PAD technique, search engine optimization and more.

For more information, and to download your copy of the "SEO for NON-TECHIES" mp3 mini-course for FREE, visit Work at Home Net Guides.

About the Author

James Martell is a successful publisher, natural search expert and the author of the best-selling Affiliate Marketers Handbook. James lives with his wife Arlene and four children in a beautiful little seaside community called White Rock, a suburb of Vancouver, BC, Canada. James has been earning his living online ever since he was introduced to the world of online publishing by a good friend back in the summer of 1999. James enjoys the freedom of working from his home and setting his own schedule and can usually be found most days at his local coffee house down on the beach in White Rock working on his laptop or out cruising in his 1965 Shelby Cobra S/C replica.