Marc’s Blog

The basic facts of Forex Home Business
When running a forex home business, a person quickly gains knowledge of how the business world works. Whether it be selling crafts, doing a home delivery business, or selling real-estate, after investing a lot of time and effort into a …

Creating Online Home Business Ideas
Many people have come up with online home business ideas but have found these ventures to be unsuccessful. Within this article today are some research tools to help you find out whether or not your business can be successful. …

Solar Energy adds value to your home/business!
Do you think of your car as an investment? Can it provide you a rate of return? Unless it sa classic/vintage or limited production car, a newly purchased car depreciates most of its value right when a consumer drives it off the …

[1_more_safelist] Start Your Home Business at No Cost!, 2/8/2008 …
Title:, Start Your Home Business at No Cost! Date:, Friday February 8, 2008. Time:, 11:00 am - 12:00 pm. Repeats:, This event repeats every day. Notes:, Sign Up here: http://www.freewebs.com/tepet. Get reminders on your mobile, Yahoo! …

Copyright 2005 Mal Keenan

In the previous article, we discussed how blogs can help you generate traffic for your main website. But what if you don t have another site? Or what if you want your blog to be your main website, the exclusive carrier of your moneymaking ventures?

This can be achieved, of course. Such is the versatility of web logs.

Standalone blogs are best utilized for online businessmen or women who have decided to pursue what many people call as nicheing. Yes, the word is ungrammatical, but it is a term that many Internet marketers have come to embrace with fondness. Nicheing involves the creation of many sites that cater to particular niches. Niches, of course, are very specialized markets, most of which are so obscure that they do not garner the attention of businesses, hence creating high demands with low supplies. The purpose of nicheing is to find these markets and provide for their needs. These enterprising businessmen would earn through the following ways:

* Creating and eventually selling products that aim to serve the said niches.

* Selling existing products that the said niches need.

* Providing for information that the members of the said niches can access for free, and enrolling the site that contains the information in a Pay Per Click (PPC) program like Google AdSense.

Regardless of what path the online entrepreneur decides to take, he should first create a site that serves as the repository of his commercial methods. Niches can be very rewarding. Since there is but a few competitions in the field, your search engine placement is sure to be higher than usual. Traffic should also be at a sustainable level since the members of a niche have nothing else to visit. This will mean a greater possibility for more sales, if you re selling a product, or a higher Click Through Rate (CTR) if you re enrolled in a PPC program.

Now, making a site can be quite cumbersome. You have to deal with the aspects of web design, graphic creation, and content writing among other concerns. What more when you have to create numerous sites for numerous niches?

Thankfully, blogs will make things a whole lot easier for you. Every online marketer who has attained success with niche marketing can attribute this to their proper exploitation of blogs. Whereas it would take you a couple of weeks to come up with 10 websites, it would only take you a couple of hours to come up with 10 blog sites. The sheer convenience and ease of web logs have made nicheing a very potent business model.

Blogs can very much substitute for a regular website. As we have previously discussed, high quality content is, ultimately, what will drive traffic to your site, and this kind of content can easily be carried through a blog. Also, you don t have to change the entire page whenever you want to update your content, as you would with a regular website. With blogs, all you have to do is to write your update in a designated box and press the publish button. Of course, different blogging software have various features, but none comes more loaded than Wordpress (www.wordpress.com).

Blogging is the way to go if you want to create, and maintain, several niche sites. And Wordpress is the weapon of choice for most Internet marketers. To fully realize the potentials of the medium, therefore, you should be able to exploit all the features that Wordpress does offer. Again, David Pankhurst s excellent report on powerful Wordpress secrets (http://www.malkeenan.com/top10tricks) will help you excel in this area.

Look out for the next article, where we re going to discuss how you could efficiently integrate the Google AdSense program into your blog, and make it a passive income generating machine.

About the author:
Get Your Hands on My FREE and Exclusive 7 Day Blogging Report by Sending and Blank Email to mailto:freeblogreport@getresponse.com In this Report I Reveal All The Secrets for Creating and Running A Successful Online Blog, Including Blogging to Niche Markets.

Most web sites are more like stage sets than real buildings; they make a good impression and they look substantial at first, but when you open a door, you end up back stage in the dark. They don’t generate large numbers of leads, help build relationships with prospects or generate the desired volume of sales.

Is your web site helping you get attention for your business?

Does it prompt prospects to contact you?

Is it helping you build long-term relationships?

Does it generate the volume of sales you want?

Building a web site that works should be more like building your dream home than constructing a stage set. You want to build a solid structure to support the growth of your business, not a flashy facade. First, you’d talk with your partner about what kind of house you want and how it fits into your long-term plans. You’d discuss your budget and the location, style and size of the house, as well as the functions of the rooms and the flow between them. When you were in agreement, you’d seek out an architect to help you plan your home.

The architect would consider your ideas and objectives, create a coherent plan to meet your objectives. You’d review these and then she’d produce drawings and blueprints to guide the construction. You’d need a contractor to build your house, and the contractor would hire specialists to complete the job; carpenters, electricians, masons, roofers, etc. Once your home was completed, you’d need to maintain it; even a brand new house needs periodic attention.

Building or Renovating Your Dream Web Site Can you imagine building your dream home without careful planning, or a clear sense of how the rooms would work together, or a blueprint?

Before you builD your web site, did you define how it would function, how it would get attention, and how it would generate leads and build profitable relationships?

Did you have a web marketing blueprint?

A web designer is like your building contractor. They will assemble your web site, but they can’t tell you what the site is supposed to accomplish or how it fits into your overall marketing plan. Before you use a web designer you first need to understand what you want your site to do and how to structure it to convert prospects to clients.

Diane Varner, a successful web designer in El Granada, California, asks prospective clients a series of questions about their marketing before she starts work for them. She wants to find out what their overall marketing strategy is and how their web site fits into it. Her expertise is web design; if a prospect needs help defining their web-marketing plan, she refers them to me.

> 4 Steps to A Web Site that Sells

1. Create Your Web Plan and Marketing Content

Before building or renovating your web site, you, too, should identify how your web site fits into your marketing strategy. Clarify and delineate the actions you want visitors to take and how to structure your site to get prospects to contact you and buy your products and services.

Organize site content and pages to mirror prospects’ decision-making process, moving them step-by-step towards a sale. Write content that motivates prospects to continue reading and browsing your site and includes appropriate use of keywords to help boost your search engine rankings.

2. Hire a Web Designer/ General Contractor

Once you have a plan and the supporting marketing copy ready, find a web designer who can put these elements together to create an easy-to-navigate site whose overall look and feel supports your positioning objectives. Many web designers function as general contractors and will sub-contract the programming required to create forms, manage databases, email or online shopping cart systems.

3. Market Your Web Site

Most people make the mistake of waiting until their site is built to think about marketing it. If you started with the previously defined web plan, you will have avoided this mOney-losing blunder. But don’t assume that people will find your web site on their own.

Use free promotional activities such as distributing your articles to get attention. Consider advertising in newsletters and/or using pay-per-click advertising.

4. Maintain Your Web Site

Just like that dream house, a web site needs regular upkeep and updating. Allocate the time and money to see that the site is well maintained, whether you learn to update text yourself, have someone in your company do it, or give the job to an outside professional.

The beautiful home you carefully planned and built creates the physical context for you to eat, sleep, relax and enjoy family and friends. Your web site should create the marketing context to help you get prospects’ attention, build relationships, and generate leads and s.ales.

Use the four steps above to build or renovate your web site and you’ll have a site that is more than a flimsy stage set; you’ll have a web site that will help grow your business.