If you want to succeed in an online business, choosing keywords and phrases is a critical step to take.   No matter what your internet marketing strategy – whether it is blogging, pay per click, VRE, or Google AdWords, keywords are king.  Quite literally, they are the difference between success and failure.

Why are keywords so vital?  Primarily, you want them to drive traffic to your web site and – if you chose your keywords wisely – it will be targeted traffic.   With the wrong keyword choices, you may end up getting little or no traffic.

Since targeted traffic is your goal (as this brings the greatest number of potential buyers to your web site), keywords still continue to be the best method of getting the highest quality traffic you can.   For example, suppose you are selling Dalmatian puppies.  With the phrase, “dogs for sale,” you could get thousands of visitors but with no assurance that any of them are seeking puppies of the Dalmatian type.  Instead, if you use the phrase, “Dalmatian puppies for sale,” the number of prospective buyers is going to be quite high – maybe even close to 100%.   Yet why such a stark contrast?   Because “dogs for sale” is too broad a term.  Those searching with that term may just be browsing, others may be looking for dogs vs. puppies, and still others may be competition as they have a dog of their own to sell.   Even using the phrase “Dalmatian” would not garner the best results.  Ever heard of a movie called, “101 Dalmatians”?

No matter what you are looking to do for your niche – whether it’s selling eBooks, affiliate marketing, or gathering data to build your list – this same keyword approach can (and should) be used.

Let’s assume you have chosen a niche market you want to promote.  Now you need the right keywords for that market.  WordTracker is an excellent tool for assisting in your keyword research. They have a free version you can access at http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com.  Google also has a keyword tool.  However, it’s a bit more hit and miss.  Results are displayed as a colored bar and not specific numbers.  Follow this link to take give it a try:  https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal.

These tools are quit simple to use.  Enter a general keyword and let the tool generate you a list of related words.   In fact, you may even find some keywords that you never thought of!  Plus, you’ll find phrases that you can use in conjunction with individual keywords, creating what’s known as a “long tail” keyword.   If you spend a little time working with either tool, you’ll soon become an expert at finding relevant keywords for any niche.

Once you have determined your ideal keywords, use those keywords for (a) your domain name, (b) your email address, (c) the title of any article or blog post you write, (d) scattered throughout any content you submit (e.g., in postings in forums), and/or (e) in your signature line.  If you opt to use PPC (pay-per-click) advertising, your keywords are the main ingredient that helps you ad to become a profit winner.

The terms “keyword” and “cash” go hand-in-hand when it comes to making money online.   When you’ve picked the right ones, you can sit back and watch the money come to you!

Popularity: 3% [?]

If you decide to start a home-based business, you need to keep the following important factors in mind when setting up your home office.

Location:  First, if you are going to use part of your home as an office, then you must actually work in your office.   Treat your home office as you would an office you would go to each day.  Be professional, bypassing the opportunity to slack or lounge around.  (You won’t make money by watching TV or sitting by the pool all day.)

Just because nobody is looking over your shoulder, this is not a green light for you to run amuck.  Use common sense and discipline to maintain the office environment, while giving yourself a little slack to enjoy the fringe benefits.
Design.

Next, you’ll want a viable design for your home office.  This may sound silly, but you do not want to end up in the utility room with a washing machine running while you are working (or talking on the phone).   Decide where in the house your office will be based.  If you have a spare room, the decision is probably quite easy.  However, if there is no spare room available, then you need to get creative.  The space you choose needs to be in an area where you are not likely to be disturbed constantly – e.g., the corner of the TV room or in the kitchen are not your best choices. You must be away from both distractions as well as the urge to work all the time.

Your office should really be “out of sight, out of mind” so you maintain a work/life balance.
Organization.  Once you’re selected a location, decide how to get the maximum the usable area. It must be easy to keep tidy and organized, have places for important files and documents, and facilitate security (from dogs, kids, or even burglars).   Again, your home office should be no different than a traditional office.

Schedule:  Now that you have your office ready to go, you’ll want to develop a schedule and stick to it, whenever possible.  Yes, working from home does give you some luxuries, like picking up the kids from school and bringing them home where you can continue to work.   Yet it also opens the door allowing you to deviate from the plan.  Maybe you think you’ll get dinner started a little early and come back to finish that project later.  Are you sure?  Maybe you’ll run to the store and quickly take advantage of that sale on new shoes.  That won’t take long, will it?  It starts as something small and before you know it, you’re running out the door and your schedule has flown out the window!

Balance:   A lot of people believe working from home is easy, or not as difficult as working in an office.  How wrong they are!  You must have greater determination when working from home to avoid being pulled into family interruptions, bypassing the inclination to do personal items on “company time” per se, etc.  Your goal is to find a good balance between work and play (and this applies no matter where your office is located).

Priorities: You need to prioritize your tasks.  The trick is doing that when you do not have someone prodding you along with fixed deadlines.  The only person who makes the decisions is you.   A good way to prioritize work is to separate tasks into two categories: those that make money, and those that don’t.  While both category of items need attention, obviously the “paying list” is where you will want to focus the majority of your time.
Break Time:   A major misconception home-based business owners make is thinking they will now have time to take breaks (eating lunch, exercising, etc.) – something they never did their 9-5 job.  The opposite is actually true.  By running your own business, and bringing in your own income, your inclination will be to work all the time.  You’ll forget to eat, you’ll forget to rest, you’ll forget to exercise and before you know it, this grand idea of yours has run you into the ground.  Again, strive to find balance.

Being the owner of your own business can be very rewarding – personally and financially.   However, it’s the other little things that make up that business that can sneak up on your and derail all those dreams of a lifestyle of riches.

Popularity: 13% [?]

A blog can help you while you are running your own business. It can be a great way to aid in the success of your website. It gives readers new information about your product, and it can be the way to bring in new visitors. Without a doubt, it is a business tool that easily updates your web presence with, hopefully, new information that keeps your readers coming back time and again.
There are many great reasons why you should include new content on your site.  Mainly, it’s to increase the web sites appeal to the search engines that determine web site rankings (yours and every other web site out there).   A blog allows the search engines to see that you have new, relevant and exceptional content.  With optimized content, you will be able to climb your web site in the rankings, placing you among the top choices.  The higher the ranking, the easier it is for potential customers to find you.

• Fill your blog with things that are applicable to your niche market or target buyer.  Blog content updating builds trust and credibility in your product, and allows your knowledge to shine through establishing you as an expert.  By providing this essential information to both current and potential customers, you maintain a continual flow of interest.
• Here are a few points about blogging software.
• Most blogging software offers word processing, archiving, RSS newsfeeds, data storage, and search features.  By having all these components as part of the blog software, the learning curve is cut substantially.
• In most cases, you can customize your blog. This gives you the ability to add/remove features, enable/disable settings, and control how readers of your blog can interact with you (e.g., if they can/cannot leave comments), and select a theme befitting of what you do.
• There are two main types of blogging software: hosted or integrated.

Hosted blogs are those such as Wordpress and Blogger.  These are websites that host your blog for free. All your blog information is held and stored by the software company.  Your blog address is issued by the company and includes their name and some personal identifying extension (e.g., yourname.wordpress.com).  This type of blog is a great option if you have limited funds while starting up.  The down side is that it is not connected with a web site you may already have.

Integrated blogs provide you software that you install and manage yourself on your own web site.  This is ideal when you want to have a unique domain name for your blog, want to tie it in with the look and feel of your existing web site, and have more control over functionality.   This type of blog does cost you money, although not any more than what you are paying to host your web site.

Any good Internet marketing plan should include a blog as a viable tool.  It allows you to easily update customers and other interested parties on what is happening with you and/or your product/service, it allows fresh content to get you higher rankings in the search engines, and it helps you build a connection with your blog visitors, earning their trust and loyalty.   All these add up to a business blog that can deliver a substantial financial return.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Options, options, options.  Having an endless array of opportunities is one thing.  However, when those opportunities come with a huge learning curve, it’s easy to become overwhelmed, frustrated, and confused.  Combine that with being a product owner and an affiliate (or any number of other things), and you have entered the world of information overload!

This happens to all new internet marketers at some time or another.  You’re suddenly thrust into an environment where everyone’s opinions differ and you don’t know where to start!  Some “experts” say to use article marketing, while others really push social marketing, and still another group swears that pay-per-click campaigns are the only way to go.

When you have all these choices, you become the hamster stuck on the wheel, going around and around and getting nowhere.  Your first step is quite simply this: take a breath, calm down, and remove the pressure.  Now, turn on your logical brain and ask yourself, “Is this information going anywhere?  Will it fall off the face of the earth tonight, tomorrow, next week, or even next year?”  The answer is no (and if it does, that’s one less thing on your plate, right?).

Have you heard the saying, “How do you eat an elephant?” and the answer being “One bite at a time.”  That needs to be your mantra.  Choose one aspect of your internet marketing and learn about that first.  Perhaps you want to advertise on Google.  Great.  Then learn about Google Adwords.   Educate yourself on this topic so that the knowledge you acquire is useful for the money making endeavors you’re undertaking right now, as well as being useful for whatever comes your direction in the future.

Also, be sure you make choices that are appropriate for where you are with internet marketing plan right now.  For example, if you have zero dollars because you’re just starting out, then you probably won’t want to spend your time learning about Google Adwords as it requires money!   Instead, learn about something that fits in with where you are today in the growth process.

You should also bypass the guide that tells you how to do everything.  It’s simply going to be too much information to digest.  Instead, invest in smaller, bite-sized chunks of information – e.g., if you want to start a free blog, then learn about how to do this successfully and launch a blog.

Over time, you’ll find that you’ll naturally move into the next area of your plan – whether it’s product creation or selling on eBay.  The key is to keep moving forward, and not get stuck in a rut by having too much information to take in and/or too many choices to make – all at the same time.

Popularity: 10% [?]