How To Really Find Out If Your Idea For An Online Business Is A Good One

E-commerce and selling online is in the opinion of many people the next "Gold Rush" Forecasts say that the move to online shopping is due to be one of the biggest changes in social behaviour in this century. Many people are drawn to this idea as it appears to give them a chance to substitute, protect or replace their means of putting food on the table and keep a roof over their heads in difficult economic times. Many dream of not only maintaining a way of life, but of finding a way of life that formerly only dreamt of by dramatically increasing their incomes. Undoubtedly this can be done and is being achieved by many, however as in all things, it is a case of caveat emptor.
Any move into the world of e-commerce or online trading must be preceded by research and such research must be a serious and determined quest to find the truth behind the hype. There is no substitute for proof of a concept by the collection of empirical data married to good in depth field research.
In order to find relevant data you can go online and do a number of searches to find all the relevant statistics you need. For instance forecast growth of the sector from well recognised consultancies, demand trends from using such things as Google trends are just two of the ways you can begin to get a "feel" for how the market is likely to behave and importantly what rate of growth can be expected.
Field research is a case of using some good old fashioned "nous" to ask the right questions in the right places. Start by doing a simple search on Google for a number of items of the type you are thinking of selling. If we take the example of dog beds for instance. Typing in the term dog beds will bring up millions of pages. Instead type in the name of a special type of dog bed and see which sites come up on page one that sell that make. Take a good look at the websites and note the features that attract you. Ask yourself if you would be tempted to buy from this site and why. Alternatively note down why you might not be tempted to buy. Use any of the free software programmes to take a screen shot of the site and save it. Recording all this type of data on a spreadsheet will give you a very valuable resource when you finally come to make your decision.
Finally look at the marketplaces where such sites are being sold. Many e-commerce sites are sold in online business for sale sites. Go into any of these and type in e-commerce stores. Look at the businesses that are being offered for sale in you preferred area and look at what the vendor is offering and what methods they use to find customers.
By doing this you will have a great deal of valuable up to date information on which to base your decision.
Peter Robson is an accountant with over 30 years experience in the small company sector. With his business partner, Debbie Crossley he runs a company helping people set up and run e-commerce businesses. For more information go to http://www.yournichebusiness.co.uk/

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To Build A Successful Online Business

With the advancement of technology, online marketing has become a trend that is evolving around the world. In every business venture, before becoming successful, one needs to take a risk in overcoming all the odds such as selling their products online despite risking a loss.
Here, we will talk about how managing the right elements in your business while starting out can mean overnight success or a certain failure.
Starting Out
Before starting out on your own, you would need to have sufficient knowledge and understanding of the product you're selling and the targeted audience that you are producing for. Without time and effort, you won't be able to get the results you would want for your business.
However, you would be surprised that successful people make money overnight while we are asleep; so what is their secret of success?
In comparison with real life and internet business, what you see on the internet might be different from what you get in real life. For real life business, you are able to see the product in front of your eyes to see if it's appealing and profitable. But the most vital factor is quality.
Quality plays a larger part than quantity. It's no use having a product when the standard is not up to expectations of the targeted audience. To be successful, sell quality products rather than products in huge quantities.
It's no point selling a branded product at a shop which is run-down and filthy as the place needs to be as appealing as the brand to draw in customers. People tend to expect the same way as what they want in real life. However environment is another factor that would keep the audience coming back to purchase. Customer service plays a role in promoting the product.
Elements to Look Out For
To amplify to a successful online business, there are certain elements that one needs to be wary of. Let's take a look at how the elements are being broken down:
Real-life Business Elements
1) Marketability: Demand for the product, long term or short term
2) Competition: How much supply is there in the market already
3) Brick & Mortar Shop: A brand and a theme that relates to the product
4) Traffic: Visitors that are exposed to the product
5) System: A sound plan that brings in income/customers, recurring or new
Internet Business Elements
1) Marketability: Demand for the product and Internet exchange friendly
2) Competition: How much supply is there in the market already
3) Quality: Giving quality to customers or users
4) Website: A brand and a theme online, in a 'virtual shop'
5) Traffic: Visitors that are exposed to the product
6) System: A sound plan that brings in income/customers, recurring or new
As you can see, both are quite similar.
You have to choose wisely what kind of product you want to market to people; there are different ways in finding the right product to market.
Google has been an innovative search engine for people like you and me to search for the popular products online. Without Google, it will not be easy to begin your online business.
For example, if you have a certain interest in an area of specialization such as cooking and you would want to search for a recipe such as Italian cuisine, you would have to see what the keywords people are using to search and see if there is a market in selling Italian recipes.
Once you have decided on a good product that you think is suitable to use you would have to evaluate on the quality on the product to see if it is up to date and the advantages and disadvantages of it to ensure that you have made the right decision before marketing it out.
The next step you would have to think about is how you are going to execute your idea in marketing your product in the virtual world. Therefore, the main foundation is your website itself.
Your website needs to provide information about the product, its selling point and the benefits it could offer to your customers. Most importantly, it should reflect the theme and brand of your product, so as to create awareness and recognition. Among these, your website must also be user-friendly.
Remember this; if your website is a pain to navigate through, the easiest thing for potential customers to do is to click the bright red X in the corner of their browser.
These are the key elements that every website should have.
Lastly, traffic plays a very important role in your business. You need to know who your target audience is as not every product would please everyone. Therefore, targeting the right audience and the right product would greatly boost your traffic of interested customers.
Conclusion
In summary, the 5 key elements to becoming successful in the online business are marketability, quality, website, traffic and system.
Marketability: Is your product in demand? Is it a short term or an evergreen demand?
Competition: Is that demand already met by supply? How big is that supply?
Quality: Giving quality in turns builds brand reputation and trust.
Website: A 'virtual shop' online for visual or audio branding. User-friendly.
Traffic: Potential customers that get exposed to your product and sales pitch.
System: Implemented to turn new customers into returning customers.
Need a hand in building up your own successful online business?
Get all the Help you ever need, tips, tricks and secrets to building your successful online business here at The Dollar League.
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The Often Neglected But Very Effective Ways To Market Your E-Commerce Business Offline

It is natural to think that raising the profile of your e-commerce business is all about using search engine optimisation, PPC, social media and social bookmarking sites, blogging and going on forums to drive potential customers to your website. What many of us seem to forget is "How did we advertise and get business before any of this came along." the answer of course is that we did many things, but many of those methods are still just as effective today as they were then. It is just that "modern" business finding methods have taken all the limelight.

Consider to begin with advertising in whatever form be it in business directories or a newspaper or periodical. The state of the newspaper industry in terms of lost readers is well known, but ought this not to be an opportunity for the astute marketer. Advertising rates can be negotiated easily at present because of the aforementioned move online. At the end of the day, people still read newspapers, particularly local ones and a good idea is to take a small advertisement to begin with. If the advert contains a link to a blog or website where they can obtain a free e-book in exchange for leaving their name and email address This is a great way to generate leads for the business. If it works well, it can be scaled up very quickly. The important thing here is that you can measure the ROI very quickly.

Another very good way of raising the profile of your business, is to have some unusual business cards printed. One of the best we have seen was a pretend wallet, which was extremely realistic and contained the business owner's card and importantly a sales message on a piece of neatly folded A4. Although this was more expensive than usual the business owner was working on the premise that people don't throw wallets away!

Networking is always a good way to find potential customers. It is extremely effective as it has the advantage of a face to face meeting, often in a social rather than business context. If you are active in this area, join as many groups as possible and rather than offer the standard business card or brochure, have a briefcase of A4 sales pages in your briefcase. The sales message does not have to be overt, just a good description of you, your business and its uniqueness and benefits. If you write in something like 10% introductory discount when you hand it to your new network acquaintance it will have that personal touch and it is also highly unlikely that it will be thrown away.

These are just a few ways in which you can use oft neglected but proven advertising methods to find new customers. And remember it is not the initial sale that is important, it's the long term value of that customer to your business.

Peter Robson is an accountant with over 30 years experience in the small company sector. With his business partner, Debbie Crossley he runs a company helping people set up and run e-commerce businesses. For more information go to http://www.yournichebusiness.co.uk/

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Small Business Ecommerce Solutions - Helping With New Business Start Ups

Every day there are numerous new business start up ideas by people from around the world. And with the Internet available with so much information, all you need to do is to get online to see what's available and to put your ideas together. Or those who wish to start their own online business but do not seem to know where to start other than getting on eBay or Amazon (provided the country you are living in offers these), you could consider checking out the available small business ecommerce solutions.

Start Building Small

No single building every appeared magically in one week. So don't expect to get your online business up and running within a week unless you had already taken the time to do your research and come up with a solid business plan. Many new business owners start up by trying different types of ecommerce software. And they learned by trial and error. Most business owners may have a bit of Internet knowledge on how to get things set up so the popular shopping cart software providers have taken a lot of time and effort to make their solution as simple and easy to use as possible. This is to help new merchants start off steadily by providing them plenty of ropes and guidance to show them how things are done.

All The Tools In One Place

If you have never built your own website or online store before, you would not want to waste a lot of time, effort and energy looking for the tools that you will need to get it done. That's why these ecommerce solution providers offer everything under one roof for faster and easier access. Most of the features and tools that you need to build an online store would be available in the admin panel categorized properly. And even if you didn't know how to use them, there are plenty of short videos and easy description to teach you which you do not have to pay extra for.

Affordable And Versatile

While many ecommerce software out there may be affordable, it is also important that new business start ups choose those that are versatile. Not only do you need a business plan but you will also need to prepare a list of questions to ask the service provider. Things like how customizable if the cart and whether they allow for expandability as your business grows.

Summary

So if you're planning to start your own business, be encouraged that you can get plenty of help by accessing the Internet and looking for these small business ecommerce solutions. Don't be afraid to try them out.

Harry Goldberg is a retired ecommerce entrepreneur who has built and sold over 100 online stores. He now encourages people who wish to start up their own new business to check out the range of small business ecommerce solutions which they can find easily online. He also encourages them to use an ecommerce software that is affordable, powerful and versatile and to think long term for their business.

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Why Using A Professional Shopping Cart Is Important For Your Business?

If you think that running a business is easy, you probably have not experience many of the heartaches that new merchants or sellers have experienced. Most people have the mentality that if it's free, then go for it. However, at times, certain things will require you to pay a certain price so that you do not end up regretting later. Here are just some of them.

Free Versus Quality

While there are many online shopping cart software providers out there offering their product for free, you would really need to try out their software to see what it actually comes with. Because when you talk about free stuff, chances are there's a lot of stuff that is probably not included or the ecommerce solution could be a very simple product by itself. If you're just starting out, it would be good to try these solutions and then check out the free trial periods offered by professional shopping cart providers to see the difference. You will definitely be able to spot the difference in quality and what is being offered.

Your Business Needs To Look Good

No one is going to really buy from your site if your online store looks really cheap littered with advertisements every where. In order for customers to take you seriously and to even hang around long enough in your site, they would need to be captivated and interested in what you have to offer. That way, you stand a chance for them to consider buying from you. And you can't get good looking templates from cheap service providers. You need to pick a really good, reliable hosted shopping cart. Best would be to utilize the free trial periods that they offer to have a look at what are the templates that you can use for your business before deciding.

You Need The Right Tools

You won't be able to build anything much if you do not have access to the right tools and the right information. And besides, it will end up being a very frustrating experience and a complete waste of time if you discovered that whatever you've been building just isn't going to cut it. So stop wasting time and use a professional shopping cart. At least you can get in touch quickly with their customer service to ask all the questions for free.

Summary

So please don't take the easy way out. Choose your hosted shopping cart wisely. You will be glad that you did.

Harry Goldberg is a retired ecommerce entrepreneur who has built and sold over 100 online stores. He shares how important a professional shopping cart is to new merchants and sellers as he would not want them to waste time using a cheap solution that is not going to get them anywhere. He advises that it is better to choose a reliable hosted shopping cart after checking out what they have to offer during their free trial periods.

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Finding The Right Niche For Your Online Business Is More Common Sense Than Inspiration

Finding the right niche for your online business is often regarded as being a little like the search for the holy grail. Many thousands of words have been written about how to unearth previously undiscovered niches, micro niches, where there is little or no competition and some would have you believe that all you have to do is find one of these hidden treasures and you will soon be banking large amounts daily.

However the reality is that the real answer is there for all to see, if you just make a study of people's day to day spending habits. Use a few basic rules as your guide. Look for an area which contains a large number of people who are passionate about their interest, hobby or recreation. Then find the areas within that where people have disposable income. This could be young people living with parents or retired people on good pensions. Think about those areas where people have their own jargon. You can find this out by watching the popular TV programmes that your target group are addicted to. Many television series develop an almost cult status for their followers. Another clue is the magazines that your target group buy. A visit to any good local newspaper store or a look a site like magazines.com can turn up some very interesting and possibly previously unrecognised areas to investigate. If you can, get hold of a copy of BRAD from your local library. This is the major reference book for the newspaper and magazine industry, giving as it does advertising rates for UK print publications. Although you are not interested in advertising rates, nonetheless you may again come across publications that you had not thought of and this could be the source of some very good ideas.

Do your target audience hold their own conferences? It is well worth looking on the search engines for exhibitions, conferences and other events. Many of these events have their own blogs where they show pictures of the latest event and you can find useful information from these such as demographic, composition of the audience (single or family) and the number of attendees. It is also worth noting that some of these events can be worth attending yourself to sell your products. Although you may not sell a great deal at such an event, it can be an invaluable source of market intelligence as you talk to your customers. Lastly, look on social media sites to see who your target group's favourite celebrities are. They can often inspire fashion themes which their followers want to copy. Finding the right niche is not so much a matter of "ferreting out" undiscovered areas as common sense detective work.

Peter Robson is an accountant with over 30 years experience in the small company sector. With his business partner, Debbie Crossley he runs a company helping people set up and run e-commerce businesses. For more information go to http://www.yournichebusiness.co.uk/

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How To Select Affordable Ecommerce Solutions For Small Business Ventures

Though I have built and sold over 100 online stores, the first store I ever operated was a brick and mortar store. I took over the reigns when my dad retired and my family still runs that little sports shoe store.

When I decided to expand the business, I wanted to do it in a way which would not require the business to take a loan even though it would have no problem securing financing for such a venture.

The only way to I could think of was to expand through the internet via a virtual store. But there were so many ecommerce solutions for small business available. Here is how I made my choice.

Free Or Paid Solution
Naturally, I looked at the free solutions first. That would be the obvious move. Why pay for something which you can get for free?

I joined a few forums and looked at the pros and cons of free ecommerce solutions. I found out that free ecommerce software would be more suited to those who have a bit of programming knowledge and have more time to spend tweaking the software to suit their needs.

Unfortunately, I did not fit that bracket so I had to choose from a number of paid solutions. Of course, if you are more tech savvy, give free ecommerce solutions a try. If it works for you, you would end up saving about $60 a month in subscription fees.

Value For Money
Most of the top ecommerce companies offer about the same features to their merchants. Since I was starting out small, I was more interested in what I could get from their plans for beginners. There are a few ecommerce solutions providers which offer quite a lot of the features even with their entry-level plans. You would be surprised at what you can get for around $40 to $60 a month.

For the price you pay, you not only get fantastic features like a Facebook app which would allow you to sell on Facebook, you also get free updates. Take note that some ecommerce solutions charge for updates after a year so read the fine print before you subscribe.

Be sure to also test their support system. Most offer email, live chat, phone call and support tickets. I prefer the support ticket system because everything is documented and my messages will never end up in the spam folder. Also, tickets are usually answered within 24 hours of a normal business day.

Ease Of Use
This one is down to the individual. One solution might be the bees knees to one person but a thorn in the side to another. I would highly recommend that you shortlist and try out the solution which interests you. After all, that is what the Free Trial period is for.

Most ecommerce solutions offer a 30-day free trial period which was more than enough time for me to fiddle with the vast amount of tools and features on offer. I spent about an hour a day for a week and a half before I made my decision.

I found out that if you need an extension, they would be more than happy to add-on a week for you. After all, it is of no lost to them if you end up subscribing to their solution.

Harry Goldberg is a retired ecommerce entrepreneur who has built and sold over 100 online stores. He now shares his ideas and tips on how to make full use of affordable ecommerce solutions for small business ventures.

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Why You Should Look At The Statistics Behind The Boom In Online Business

It is forecast that online shoppers will spend over $ 300 billion in 2016. Up from over $ 200 billion in 2011. This equates to a rise of over 60% and what is important that even at that figure, it only represents around 9% of total retail spend. If the trend continues (and there is no reason to believe that it wont) those people who master the art of online retailing are going to be very rich indeed. In fact no lesser figure than best selling author, Professor and Economist Paul Zane Pilzer has stated that ten million new millionaires will be created by 2016 and the vast majority of those will have done it by trading on the internet.

These sorts of sums seem hardly credible when you consider all the bad news that seems to be pumped out by our media everyday and yet, when you stop to think about it, isn't the whole area of internet marketing starting to gather momentum. When a company such as Facebook, that did not even exist not that many years ago can become the largest stock market flotation in U S history it is surely time to take note and start to plan accordingly.

And as the trend to online shopping gathers momentum, so there is more money to spend on improving the customer experience by providing better sites for them to shop on, better communication, and in many cases a far better service than their bricks and mortar counterparts. Therefore with such economic drivers as higher fuel costs making families think twice about venturing to the local shopping centre or mall, cash strapped retailers having to hold reduced stocks whereas the online retailer can drop ship or offer a much greater variety of choice online and the ability of consumers to review products and services online, find the best price and then buy in the comfort of their own home, are we heading for the "perfect storm" as far as the opportunities in online retailing are concerned?

Only time will tell, but on the face of it anyone who is threatened by redundancy, who is concerned that the job market may not be the place to be as far as finding an income goes, needs to be looking very seriously at the opportunities available in selling online. The main question of course is how to go about it? Starting out in an area where you have little or no prior knowledge is always fraught with danger. A good idea is to research carefully and seek to find as much as you can to find the best route forward.

Peter Robson is an accountant with over 30 years experience in the small company sector. With his business partner, Debbie Crossley he runs a company helping people set up and run e-commerce businesses. For more information go to http://www.yournichebusiness.co.uk/

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Does DFP Small Business Cherry Pick AdSense/Ad Exchange Ads?

You'd think Google would have an incentive to serve more AdSense / Ad Exchange (AdX) ads then is intended by the publisher. The fact is, DFP Small Business is a free product. The only money they make is on the AdSense / AdX ads that publishers serve through DFP. Therefore, they would want the publisher to serve as many AdSense / AdX ad impressions as possible. So, does Google in fact serve more AdSense / Ad Exchange advertisements than the optimal level? Short answer: yes.

How do they do this? Most publishers serve competing third party ad networks as price priority line items. This means that the publisher must attribute a value CPM to prioritize the third party ad network against other third party ad networks and AdSense / AdX advertisements. Most publishers value their third party ad networks with the CPM's that the third party ad network earns on a consistent basis. Theoretically, AdSense / AdX advertisements will only serve when their predicted CPM will be able to beat all third party ad networks. However, this is not the case in all instances. For example, let's say we had only one ad network AOL setup in the top 300x250 spot valued at $2 CPM at an open frequency cap. AdSense / AdX should only serve when it can beat that $2 CPM. Therefore, AdSense / AdX's average CPM should be higher than $2. We have tested this example in many different instances, and AdSense / Ad Exchange's average CPM would be under the $2 mark several times. This means the DFP serves AdSense / AdX with bias.

How does DFP cherry pick their ads? They either set a minimum percentage of AdSense / Ad Exchange ad impressions for enabled ad units or they serve AdSense / Ad Exchange ads when their predicted CPM is within a certain percentage of the value CPM. From our experience, we think it's the latter. The further the value CPM's are from AdSense / AdX's average CPM's, the less AdSense / Ad Exchange advertisements are served.

How do you compensate for DFP's AdSense / AdX bias? If you want to run an advertiser / ad network as a sponsorship line item, make sure to disable AdSense / Ad Exchange from that advertisement unit. If you want your third party advertising networks to run at a fairer playing field, inflate the value CPM's within each line item. We've found that inflating the value CPM's by 25% - 30% does the trick. We've also noticed that AdX runs at less of a bias then AdSense.

DFP Small Business does have a bias for serving their own advertisements; however, don't let those third party ad networks bully you about DFP cherry picking AdSense / AdX (We're talking to you Tribal Fusion). It's never as bad as they say it is. They are merely trying to get exclusive control of your first ad impressions. Never give in to serving an ad network exclusively first on your site unless they absolutely kill all the other ad networks. The most optimal setup is a competitive one within the DFP framework. You do have the ability to compensate for DFP Small Business little secretive bias;)

Kean Graham is one of the banner ad monetization experts at Monetize More. He specializes in boosting the banner ad revenues of high traffic websites. Kean specifically specializes in online classified monetization.

To learn more about monetizing banner ad inventories or specifically online classifieds, please visit: http://www.monetizemore.com/

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4 Free Home Business E-Books

Today I'd like to share with you four of my favorite free e-books written specifically for people who want to get the most out of life and business.

The first free e-book is called "You 2.0" and it helps readers quickly find their their why, how, values, strengths and their personal success patterns. Once these are mapped out, an individual has a firm foundation to be his or her best in any situation. By finding and living this process, individuals are able to lead a life by design, not by default. The author, J. D. Meirer from SourcesofInsight.com titled the book 'You 2.0' because it's about renewal and taking yourself to the next level.

Number two on the list is called "The Zen of Results". Focussing on personal productivity, this guide addresses the question "How do you do less, but accomplish more?" I'll give you a hint: You focus on meaningful outcomes. When you're working on what matters, you feel good about the time you spend working. You're on your path.

Moving on to the third free book, Charlene Kingston from Social Media DIY provides a very useful e-book called 5 Truths About Working From Home. It covers these points:
How to create a healthy and effective workspace.Building a success team to support you.Health tips for using a laptop computer.Overcoming the isolation of working from home.How social media helps you to stay visible professionally.Finding people to help you with challenging tasks.Why your daily schedule and routine are important

My final recommendation is Soni Pitt's free guide to teaching distance courses via teleclass. As you may know, a teleclass is a class that is held in a "conference call" format over the telephone. People from all over the world can attend the class from the comfort of their homes, using just their regular telephone or Skype. Offering teleclasses is a perfect fit for a home-based business, and technology such as free conference lines and cheap long-distance rates makes it simple and economical.

The teleclass e-book covers:

• what is a teleclass?

• how do teleclasses work?

• teleclass benefits (why would I want to offer teleclasses?)

• how much does it cost to offer a teleclass?

• teleclass tips and etiquette

• teleclass resources and technology required

• where to get training as a teleclass leader

• where to list your teleclasses online

There you go: four e-books that offer super information for home business entrepreneurs at the very best price - no charge whatsoever!

There are some great free home business e-books out there if you know where to look. You can download each of these e-books on the HomeBusinessWiz.com free book page.

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Can Virtually Anyone Launch Their Own Successful E-Book Publishing Business?

Many people often wonder whether or not it's possible to generate some useful income on the Internet with e-books. As you probably already know, e-books are becoming increasingly popular. There is a simple formula that many successful e-book publishers have used in the past, are using today, and will use in the future to make a lot of money in this industry.

That formula basically revolves around the idea of figuring out what topics people are interested in and then producing e-books that contain the advice and information that people interested in those topics are seeking. That's basically all there is to it. Obviously, there are a lot of other details and need to be taken into consideration as well. But the truth is, it's easier than ever before to make money on the Internet publishing e-books.

One concern that a lot of people have is whether or not they need to personally be able to write the e-books that they publish. Nothing could be further from the truth. Stop and think about how large publishing companies operate. For the most part, various authors are responsible for creating the content. The publishing company focuses on marketing and sales.

When it comes to e-books, your primary goal will be to generate sales. While it's certainly true that you can author and the e-book if you'd like to, it's not required. Some of the most successful e-book publishers in the marketplace today don't bother with any of the content creation themselves. It's far easier to either acquire the content or to have a topic expert create the content using their own knowledge and expertise. This is truly a win-win situation because people who buy the e-book get genuinely useful information and you as the e-book publisher can rake in easy profits.

You definitely owe it to yourself to seriously consider the benefits associated with launching an e-book publishing business. Not only do you get to set your own hours, but you also have the opportunity to work from virtually anywhere in the world where there is an Internet connection. The money can be really good, too. In fact, it it's not unusual for somebody to be able to generate some useful income within 90 days of launching their e-book business.

To the extent you're interested in making a lot of money with e-books, it's certainly possible provided that you're willing to put in the effort.

Did you know? You can make THOUSANDS of dollars online selling e-Books on the Internet! It's faster and easier than you think! Click here to visit my e-book Secrets website today!

Yours For E-Book Profits,
Ethan Evans

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Improving Your Business Through Better Technology

There are many different things that you can do to help improve your business. One thing that you should consider, however, is using the right type of software which will help to streamline your business, improve your productivity and boost your bottom line. Although there are many different types of software which can do so, we are going to focus in on a few that should be used by any business. This is true, regardless of whether they are an international corporation with many offices or if they are a small, mom-and-pop shop that is operating a store in their local area.

One type of software that should always be considered is accounting software. There are many different choices that are available to you in this regard and quite honestly, some are going to be more user-friendly than another. One of the core benefits of using accounting software is the fact that it can improve the overall accuracy of your accounting. Many businesses have found that they were not only able to improve their accounting, they were able to do much of the accounting work on their own. This, in itself, has improved their bottom line. Of course, there will also be times when it will be to your benefit to outsource this work to a third party.

The way that you handle your documents is also an important part of many businesses. It is important for you to maintain compliance with various organizations, including HIPPA. You would also want to ensure that you have access to those documents when it was necessary, even when you're on the road. That is why many businesses are now working through remote servers, something that is referred to as working in the cloud. This gives you the opportunity to have easy access from any location and it can also make document sharing a reality within your business.

How frequently do you review your business to make sure that it is running smoothly? Taking a good look at your business analytics can assist you in doing so, but there are various types of business dashboards that are available within these programs that you will work with regularly. Some of them are going to use OLAP cubes to analyze the data while others are going to use a variety of other systems. It is important that you choose a software program which will allow you to see your weaknesses as well as your strengths and to give you the information that is necessary so that you can act on either of those to your benefit.

Regardless of what type of software you use within your business, it is important to make sure that it is kept up-to-date. Software is regularly updated in most cases to seal any potential problems that may exist which would allow unscrupulous individuals access to your network. By keeping up with any patches or other updates that occur within the programs, you will be less likely to experience those problems within your own business.

Rick Rubenstine is the author of this article about Business Dashboards, OLAP cubes and business analytics. He has worked in the industry for over 10 years and enjoys blogging.

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Passive Online Income From EBooks - Build A Profitable Online Business With EBooks

Passive income is income you generate long after you have done the initial work. This is sometimes referred to as residual income, but the online community tends to not use that term. Instead of trading your time for an hourly wage, passive income allows you to create products that will sell for years to come. This process of working once and being paid over and over again is one that will make a huge difference in your life.

I believe the fastest and easiest way to get started is by writing an eBook on a topic you are interested in and have some knowledge and experience in as well. This can be in almost any niche, but you want to make sure people are willing to spend money in order to receive this information. Go over to Google and type in the topic you are thinking of writing an eBook on to see what is already available for sale. My rule of thumb is this - if there are at least three products for sale on this topic then the market is there and you should proceed. On the other hand, if yours would be only the first or second product available in this niche, it probably won't do as well.

Now it's time to make an outline so that you can get all of your ideas out of your head and onto paper or a word processing document. Spend as much time as you need to include everything you possibly can here. Put a check mark next to anything that you will need to do further research on later in this process.

Refine your outline so that you have several sections or chapters, and then start to fill in these sections with information that is relevant. I think of my eBook outline like I think of my house; I only put things in the kitchen or family that belong in those rooms. With your eBook chapters, only add the content that belongs to the chapter or section you are currently working on. This will keep you organized so that you will move quickly through the writing process.

The marketing begins while you are still writing, so start to build a list of people who will most likely be interested in purchasing a copy of your information.

Once your eBook is completed you can move into the next phase, which is to reach out to people who are influential in this niche to have them recommend your eBook through an affiliate link. This will build you list and your income quickly and show the marketplace that you are a credible expert in your field.

Remember that the reason to start an Internet business is to give you the time and financial freedom to live the life you choose. Get started writing eBooks today by visiting Getting Started With eBooks to learn what is needed to build a profitable online business with eBooks.

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eBooks to Augmenting Your Online Marketing Campaign for Your Small Business

The other day, I was speaking to a young man who was building up his small online business, as he specializes in physical training, conditioning, and exercising endeavors. We had a dialogue about how to incorporate his writing, online articles, and knowledge into an eBook format to offer or give to his clientele as an incentive, also to promote his business and up his credibility and expert status. You see, he knows what he is good at, what he knows, and everything to do with the topic.

Now then, I do not believe it to be ethical to hype expertise - however, sometimes it makes sense to show what you know. My acquaintance indicated he did wish to put together eBooks but was sketchy on how to do that, or how to distribute them. He asks me two questions, perhaps they have been on your mind as well:

Do you have any tips on how to distribute eBooks?
How long do you think an eBook should generally be?

Okay so, my thinking on the eBook thing is two-fold, first, it seems that a simple 20-30 page book with some of his nutrition tips (articles) perhaps expanded, with some real-life stories makes sense. Then give it away for free if people sign up for your online newsletter.

Then a larger eBook 20,000 plus words for sale with the purchase of any services (free) or they can buy it stand alone for $29.95 and maybe you can allow others to sell it too, if they give you half the money or send someone to your secured server, then you give them half the money as a commission. Also list it on Amazon for $10 more, thus establishing a value, but if they buy it NOW it is less, or they get it free if they buy your other services.

Indeed, I would also write an eBook to help people start out, perhaps walking 2-3 miles per day, losing some weight, once they do move them up to a slow jog spurts within their walk, until they can run a mile, then two, then three, etc, and, as the weight comes off they will not screw up their knees etc. My acquaintance might use some other articles in his eBook if they make sense for him, by contacting the authors and promising to cite the source and get permission. In fact, it might help him get to the 20,000 words or assist in getting to 20-30 pages for the free-bee eBook.

Are you beginning to see the strategy here? All you probably need to get started are some eBook templates which you can get from Microsoft if you are using MS WORD at their online free-templates website, or email me and I will send you some that I have to assist. Indeed, I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.

Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative eBooks on Writing eBooks Concepts. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net/

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To Build A Successful Online Business

With the advancement of technology, online marketing has become a trend that is evolving around the world. In every business venture, before becoming successful, one needs to take a risk in overcoming all the odds such as selling their products online despite risking a loss.

Here, we will talk about how managing the right elements in your business while starting out can mean overnight success or a certain failure.

Starting Out

Before starting out on your own, you would need to have sufficient knowledge and understanding of the product you're selling and the targeted audience that you are producing for. Without time and effort, you won't be able to get the results you would want for your business.

However, you would be surprised that successful people make money overnight while we are asleep; so what is their secret of success?

In comparison with real life and internet business, what you see on the internet might be different from what you get in real life. For real life business, you are able to see the product in front of your eyes to see if it's appealing and profitable. But the most vital factor is quality.

Quality plays a larger part than quantity. It's no use having a product when the standard is not up to expectations of the targeted audience. To be successful, sell quality products rather than products in huge quantities.

It's no point selling a branded product at a shop which is run-down and filthy as the place needs to be as appealing as the brand to draw in customers. People tend to expect the same way as what they want in real life. However environment is another factor that would keep the audience coming back to purchase. Customer service plays a role in promoting the product.

Elements to Look Out For

To amplify to a successful online business, there are certain elements that one needs to be wary of. Let's take a look at how the elements are being broken down:

Real-life Business Elements

1) Marketability: Demand for the product, long term or short term

2) Competition: How much supply is there in the market already

3) Brick & Mortar Shop: A brand and a theme that relates to the product

4) Traffic: Visitors that are exposed to the product

5) System: A sound plan that brings in income/customers, recurring or new

Internet Business Elements

1) Marketability: Demand for the product and Internet exchange friendly

2) Competition: How much supply is there in the market already

3) Quality: Giving quality to customers or users

4) Website: A brand and a theme online, in a 'virtual shop'

5) Traffic: Visitors that are exposed to the product

6) System: A sound plan that brings in income/customers, recurring or new

As you can see, both are quite similar.

You have to choose wisely what kind of product you want to market to people; there are different ways in finding the right product to market.

Google has been an innovative search engine for people like you and me to search for the popular products online. Without Google, it will not be easy to begin your online business.

For example, if you have a certain interest in an area of specialization such as cooking and you would want to search for a recipe such as Italian cuisine, you would have to see what the keywords people are using to search and see if there is a market in selling Italian recipes.

Once you have decided on a good product that you think is suitable to use you would have to evaluate on the quality on the product to see if it is up to date and the advantages and disadvantages of it to ensure that you have made the right decision before marketing it out.

The next step you would have to think about is how you are going to execute your idea in marketing your product in the virtual world. Therefore, the main foundation is your website itself.

Your website needs to provide information about the product, its selling point and the benefits it could offer to your customers. Most importantly, it should reflect the theme and brand of your product, so as to create awareness and recognition. Among these, your website must also be user-friendly.

Remember this; if your website is a pain to navigate through, the easiest thing for potential customers to do is to click the bright red X in the corner of their browser.

These are the key elements that every website should have.

Lastly, traffic plays a very important role in your business. You need to know who your target audience is as not every product would please everyone. Therefore, targeting the right audience and the right product would greatly boost your traffic of interested customers.

Conclusion

In summary, the 5 key elements to becoming successful in the online business are marketability, quality, website, traffic and system.

Marketability: Is your product in demand? Is it a short term or an evergreen demand?

Competition: Is that demand already met by supply? How big is that supply?

Quality: Giving quality in turns builds brand reputation and trust.

Website: A 'virtual shop' online for visual or audio branding. User-friendly.

Traffic: Potential customers that get exposed to your product and sales pitch.

System: Implemented to turn new customers into returning customers.

Need a hand in building up your own successful online business?

Get all the Help you ever need, tips, tricks and secrets to building your successful online business here at The Dollar League.

Commit to Your Success Now, as we are Committed to Yours!

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The Untold Factors Behind E-Commerce Business Failures

In the eyes of a successful e-commerce business owner, a failing economy would not stop him or her to profit online. However, it may contribute as one factor to hinder the e-commerce business to grow, but it is not the sole reason other e-commerce business owners fail. As of now, the internet has an abundant number of users. In the recent Plunkett's Research, there are more or less 1.5 billion users on the internet worldwide. Even if the United States economy is running low, some customers all around the world that e-commerce businesses can transact with are there.

It is unfortunate that common e-commerce businesses start to fail just after two years of establishment. There are many factors why it is inevitable for an e-commerce business to fail. Examples are not getting a cheap webhosting provider, ignoring customers, and lack of website updates. However, if a businessperson knows what factors are hindering e-commerce business to flourish, they are sure to be bound with success. Therefore, here are a few common reasons why an e-commerce business will fail.

Lack of Knowledge about Their Target Market

E-commerce business owners do this big mistake repeatedly. Not knowing what your market wants will definitely make you fail in the e-commerce industry. In addition, thinking that your customer will just buy any product you show them is a big no. You must know what your customer wants. You must know what your product can solve and why they need it. In addition, knowing the demographic makeup of your customers will surely help.

E-commerce Website

Getting a very expensive webhosting service will surely reduce your profit. It is recommended that e-commerce business owners get the cheapest domain registration available. In addition, using a very long and hard to remember website name is wrong. It is best to make your e-commerce website's name short, meaningful, concise, and easy to remember.

Customer Service

A business' success does not always rely on your product and advertising. Providing a customer with the extra mile in customer service will provide you with loyal customers. Ignoring their requests and problems will just give you tons of detractors that may harm your reputation. Always remember that every customer is important and you must always provide him the best customer service experience.

Outdated Website Contents

Not updating your website contents may let customers think that your website is not working anymore. In addition, stale contents will make the regular visitors discouraged to visit your websites often. This is because customers always want new information about your products and services. This will highly affect your traffic and your marketing.

Knowing and avoiding those factors will largely lower the chances of getting an e-commerce business to fail. Providing good customer service, getting a cheap webhosting provider, frequent updates on the website, and knowing your customers will not only help you on avoiding failure, following those things will also raise your chances to be one of the best e-commerce websites out there on the internet. If you already have an e-commerce website, you must start now on fixing the things that is hindering you to get more out of your business.

For more information on cheap webhosting or cheapest domain registration visit web-designs-online

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Why Planning The Market You Want To Sell To Is So Important When Starting A Business Online

In our experience in the online or e-commerce business sector, we have spoken to many people who want to begin to trade online. One of the biggest failings of people wanting to succeed in this area is their failure to work out a detailed plan of how to go about it. Any planning must start with a clear understanding of the market to target.

The first thing to do must always be to start with the market that you wish to target and then "work back" in terms of what needs to be done to put in place the necessary machine to make it work. By machine we mean the means of bringing whatever it is you eventually decide t sell to the means of putting it in front of your potential customers.

What market should you decide to prospect in?

The best advice here is to remember the credo of many big companies in the marketplace. That is to "follow the money" Look for the areas where people are spending money especially in difficult economic times. This does not mean looking only in those areas where people are shopping only for bargains. In reality this can be very counterproductive as these areas are populated by customers who are very price sensitive.

Instead look for areas where people spend their money to make themselves better in recessionary times. Look for areas where people follow a passion or very strong interest. When times are hard, people want to be relieved from the day to day gloom. People will still spend money on their pets. In fact there is a growing trend to own pets in both the U.S. And the U.K. Recent statistics show that people still want to get married. Many people who are unemployed will still pursue their hobbies. A useful exercise is to actually walk down any high street on a Saturday and see what types of shop are busy.

Whilst there, take a look at any shop selling magazines or periodicals. As many people will initially buy a magazine on a topic that interests them or a new hobby they are thinking of taking up. What types of magazine are these shops devoting expensive shelf space to. Ask your local newsagent what types of magazine are popular at the moment. Talk to friends and neighbours and ask them how they have changed their shopping habits. This and other types of research is worth its weight in gold - quite literally.

Peter Robson is an accountant with over 30 years experience in the small company sector. With his business partner, Debbie Crossley he runs a company helping people set up and run e-commerce businesses. For more information go to http://www.yournichebusiness.co.uk/

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Tips To Consider Before Starting A Business With An Online Shopping Cart Solution

Starting a business is easy when you think and ponder on it. However, the tough part is in the planning and in putting everything together. Many people underestimate all the work that needs to go into creating a successful business. Here are some helpful tips to consider before taking the plunge.

Do You Have The Time?

Running a business will require some of your time. Most people want to have their own online business to generate some side income. If done right, some may even end up resigning from their jobs to run their online business full time. However, bear in mind that you need to allocate time for it. And if you are already stretched for time, you need to some how make time to plan and consider all the list of things that needs to be done to get your business off the ground.

Set Aside Some Money

Everything costs money these days. But if you're strapped for finances, then you need to make use of all the free trial periods offered by any online shopping cart solution. No point launching your business when you haven't completed building your store yet, right? Go for those easy shopping cart software that comes with 30 days free trial period so that you have some time to built it before launching it. In the mean time, decide on how much you are willing to pay for having an online business. Monthly subscription fees would cost less than $20 a month for a really basic package. This does not include the payment processor fees and other services which you may require.

Always Have A Learning Attitude

The internet is constantly evolving. And in order to make your business visible, you need to know more about SEO. Unless you are so strapped for time but have a bundle of cash to spend on SEO services, it is advisable that you learn to do it yourself. Again, this will require time to study and learn. It does not mean that you put up an online store and you will instantly get sales. It's all about being visible on the search engines when you talk about ecommerce. Find out from your shopping cart provider whether they provide any free tips and advice on the subject and be willing to learn and grasp the concept before you start. It will end up saving you time and money.

Summary

For some, starting a business is easy but maintaining it is difficult. So make sure you take the time to consider and count the cost before you jump into starting one.

Harry Goldberg is a retired ecommerce entrepreneur who has built and sold over 100 online stores. He now shares with those who wish to start up their own online business to consider making use of the free trial periods offered these online shopping cart solution to try out before taking the plunge. He also encourages them set aside the time, money and always have a learning attitude when building their business with an easy shopping cart software.

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Effective Ways of Advertising a Business

There are several ways in which one can advertise his business. For a business to be successful it is important that business owners should advertise it and use effective marketing strategies that will boost their business sales. Advertising is one way of marketing and increasing traffic to your website or business. There are different ways in which marketers can advertise their business although promoting small businesses may be at times challenging. It is therefore quite important that marketers should use proven marketing strategies that will help their business find new customers without spending a fortune. In this article we are going to look at the different ways in which you can advertise your business.

Different ways of advertising a business
Create a website - a well designed and customized website is one way of attracting traffic and increasing product sales. Mainly a website is one of the easiest ways to connect with people and when you have your own website it can be of great help in gaining profit in your business. There is a saying that says a business without a website is equivalent to a person without an identity. Mostly many businesses get large mass of customers from the internet through the use of search engines. The advantage of having a good website and updating it every now and then gives the potential customers the ability to preview your product before making any enquires or purchase.Through the use of social media sites - another way of advertising your business is by the use of social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, twitter, MySpace among others. There are different ways in which social media sites can be used in marketing your business. First and foremost you can recruit friends and post update about your business or website. Secondly you can link your website or blog to social networking sites. Once you have linked your site to social media sites visitors who have an account with that social networking site can post a link to your page on that site.Write content about your business and publish it in newspaper or magazine - write a detailed article about your business and publish it in newspaper or magazines.Partner with another business - when business owners combine effort they share ideas and promote each other businesses. This is a great way of marketing your business.Give free presentation - host product presentation and describe to people the important, usage and the advantages of your products. This will increase your product sales.Create ads related to your website or business - place ads on Google or in the yellow pages. This will increase traffic to your site.

Advantages of advertising your business
Advertising your business creates awareness all over the globe and thus increases sales and growth of your businesses.It helps in attracting mass competitor customersIt helps in generating direct sales and lead sales

The most important point to remember when marketing or advertising your business is that you should place your advertisement where your target audience will have the utmost possibility of seeing or hearing it. Above all your advertisement should be clearly and convey the benefits of your product or services to your target audience.

123 Target Marketing helps business owners in website development, marketing and advertising, social media and internet marketing solutions. Effective marketing must be designed to get the target audience to know, like, and trust you.

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Using Google AdSense for Your Online Business

As you probably know, Google makes a hefty percentage of its revenue by selling advertising space keyed to particular search terms. Advertisers can target their ads to show up to internet surfers searching on particular key words. So, Toys R Us might want their ads to show up for searches on "toys" or "cartoon giraffes", Levi's would like people interested in "jeans" or "denim" to be presented with their ads. What you might not know is that there is a program that will let you (as long as you've got a web site) get a piece of the action.
Here's how it works. You sign up with Google, in a very simple process, and include code they generate in your website. Once that happens, Google will direct targeted ads to the spots you set aside on your website that match the content of your site. There is an approval process, but as long as your site is of reasonable quality and not objectionable, you will almost certainly be approved - everyone wants to get a piece of the revenue stream. When your visitors click on the ads, Google will send you a percentage (probably about 60%) of what they make on the PPC (pay per click) responses. That is pretty much it. You do not have to do anything else, there is no negotiations, no paperwork, and no further need to change your site. Some percentage of your visitors will see the ads and click on them, and every time that happens, a little bit of money goes in your AdSense account and you will start receiving monthly checks from Google Corporate.
Here is some of the story behind this very simple concept. Obviously, you were getting paid for something that visitors to your site are doing, namely, clicking on an ad. So, the most important variable in how much you can earn from this program is how many visitors are attracted to your site. I am sure you would not be surprised to learn that you are not the first person to contemplate this question: "How can I create a website that gets a lot of traffic so I can generate a lot of advertising revenue?" There is two ways to answer this question: one is, make something that people think is valuable, interesting, fun or in some other way compelling, and then find ways to promote the site so your monthly visitor numbers start to climb. If you can find something that is actually important to people, then you can make an appeal like "If you believe in what we are doing, please click on a few of these ads. It would not cost you anything, and Google will send us money we will use to support our work."
The second way to answer the question has to do with the whole art and science of SEO, Search Engine Optimization, (some might say dark arts) which basically means, how can you increase the chances that when someone is searching for something related to your website, your website is one of the top results. Almost all traffic any website gets, especially in the beginning, comes through the results presented by search engines, Google being by far the strongest example. Design your site with SEO in mind and your monthly AdSense check will be bigger, quite possibly in amounts that will be significant.
There are people who earn hundreds, even thousands of dollars a month from this Google program. It is not free money -- you will still have to do the work of creating your site and promoting it, and answering for yourself the question, "what can I put up on the web that will resonate with people so I will get lots of visitors?" If you are not sure how to answer that question just yet, you can at least start thinking about the AdSense program. One place to start is with Google itself, at www.google.com/AdSense.
Are you looking for more information on "how to make your online business work". Visit http://www.inboxatmgenerator.com/ today for a free ebook to download, "Inbox Cash Techniques".

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