Carrying on with the battle against debt! Ebay sales this week haven’t been all that bad, really, although, after having invested money in getting stocks of software programs, I’m a bit disappointed that sales have dropped off again.

Been busy all this week so far, Tuesday, my first (half) day off after finishing nights I did a computer job, Wednesday I worked the Heacham market, yesterday, Thursday, I had off because there’s nowhere to work around here on Thursdays.

Today I went to a brand new market to try it out on it’s first day. Unfortunately, the really nice old man who’s organising it was badly let down, he tells us, by his advertising arrangements, so it ended up pretty bad all round. So bad, in fact, the organiser didn’t charge us rent for our stalls.

Tomorrow, I’m trying another market out at a place called Snettisham - this one is well established and I should do better tomorrow, providing, of course, the rain and the forecasted storms keep away!

I just need the published books to take off a little more than what they are doing, so I’m aiming to put together a marketing plan over the next few days - the sales here, as well as the software sales, would release me from working every day off I get.

Keeping on keeping on!

Forgive the title! Human beings are born lazy by default, and one of the reasons why the internet has taken off so fast, so far, is because it conforms to one of humanity’s basic instincts - to be lazy.

All over the world, High Streets and other town shopping centres are dying off. Gone are the days when you’d have to park the car in an outside town car park (or car lot, if you’re American), trudge up and down the long row of shops on both sides of the road, in all weathers, to get the weekly shop.

The big supermarkets and stores then came along - and condensed the long rows of shops into one massive selling outlet with a roof over it, providing us with shelter and heating, and a car park immediately outside the doors.

And now, it’s the turn of the internet. Never has it been so easy to start a home business and get a global customer database in a single afternoon. Now, we don’t even have to go out to get our supplies - we get them delivered to our homes after ordering them online from our front rooms.

Remember the record “In the year 2525″ by Zager & Evans? This record predicts that we - and our world - will be controlled by computers to an extent that our arms would be hanging limp at our sides, our legs wouldn’t have anything to do, because “some machines doin’ that for you”.

That day’s almost here. The internet also conforms to another of humanity’s quirks - non communicative communication. It’s true - we don’t talk any more, certainly not like we used to anyway, these days, we text, SMS, IM, or email.

Anything that minimises interpersonal communication.

That’s why the internet’s taken off so fast. All around us, no matter where we live, traditional industry has/is dying off, the world has gone into a massive depression, and at the same time, more people than ever are now working from home. So, where does this leave the small home business?

Simply - at the best advantage that has ever existed. Information is now the world’s golden, most sought after currency. We can supply that information to the world from our front room using the internet, and collect money in our payment processor’s accounts for doing so.

And although we are in a new era, the old business values still stand, probably more today than ever. In your marketing efforts, you must strive to enrich peoples lives - to give them something that greatly enhances their life. Aim to give every customer something far in excess of the money value he pays you for the service.

Ensure all your articles, web pages, blogs and other on line posts are key worded. This is professionally known as Search Engine Optimisation. There is lots of really expensive software out there to do this for you, but here’s the free way to do it.

Type “keyword Tool” into your favourite web browser and decide which site you’d like to try. Once on your choice of keyword site, simply type in the subject of your web post - and the search engine will generate you a list of keywords, complete with the number of searches in the last 24 hours using that phrase or keyword.

Select the most popular 10, 15, or 20 - and simply use those keywords, especially, in the first two sentences of your article or web page, and ‘pepper’ the rest throughout. As well as this, make sure your web page loads quickly, and that, basically, is search engine optimisation.

So, to recap, we have a tool that conforms to and complies with two of humanity’s basic instincts - laziness and non personal communication. We know information is the most powerful currency in the world. We can put these two elements together and create a web page, after which we ensure the page is littered with keywords that match your subject.

You now have the most powerful selling tool, both throughout the world, and which has ever been known to man. The most frightening thing about it all is that the vast majority of the world still doesn’t have a computer.

Technology is spreading further every day and it’s bringing new opportunities, both in new technology, and people, on line with it every day. That’s why the internet is the world’s most powerful selling tool - ever.

This has to be the most powerfully secret marketing technique in the world. Most people just have to use it properly for maximum results.

The Internet has made this world an open enterprise. It has become important for companies to further expand their market and their consumer targets. Engaging in Internet Marketing maybe a risk for people who wish to be involved with this type of business.

Ensure that most of your target consumers will actually be interested in your product. Consider the best products which will definitely capture their interests and needs. This means that you need to identify specifically who these people are, their location and financial level in the society. You need to have both marketing knowledge and skills to achieve your goals in the field of Internet marketing, and one of the best ways in doing this is to concentrate on one specific segment - a niche - of your intended market.

You can always use varied Internet Marketing Solutions that are being offered by companies which can be your tool for support to your consumers. This solution may include email marketing, search engine optimisation or creating web pages or sites. Since you need to maximise your return profit, you need to choose the specific Internet Marketing Solutions that will help you achieve this. These marketing techniques will not cost much since they are very self-explanatory, and therefore, learned easily.

Email marketing is a common Internet marketing Solution. This is a cost effective way of communicating and interacting to your customers, driving them to visit your website and check out your products. It may be in a way of marketing articles, leading them to forums or newsletters. A newsletter has an advantage of expanding your consumers as more and more sign up on it until you can have a bulk list of emails.

Another great Internet marketing solution is through websites. This is a good promotion strategy to employ since you can display all the necessary information for your target consumers. The website should capture their interest and be complete since every transaction, from inquiry to payments may take place. All correspondence that will be done online must be well-facilitated by the features of your website. This includes capturing your visitor’s email address as they subscribe to your newsletter or other site update notification service.

Another Internet marketing solution is search engine optimisation. This is a type of service for your website that you can make use of in order to raise the number of visitors to your site. Once a prospective customer uses a search engine, your website will rank higher in the list of searches if properly optimised, which in return will increase your site’s traffic.

Considering these Internet Marketing Solution, there are different companies offering software products containing one or all of these solutions all of which involve spending money as a gesture of good faith and trust in your own future. Far better, then, to simply ensure all your articles, newsletters and web pages contain the maximum number of search engine friendly terms, phrases and explanations in the first couple of sentences, and to spread them out at equal stages throughout the rest of the page.

This way takes only a few minutes, and is totally free.

From Overture, a keyword suggestion tool, you will see the millions of searches done to a certain keyword. When these keywords are typed on search boxes of search engines, indexed websites containing articles with those keywords will be displayed. And this is what leads traffic to websites with keyword-rich articles. Yes, the magic word is articles.

Content is king. You can say that again. That is why writing articles is one of the most utilized Internet marketing media today. Internet surfers just can’t get enough of information on various fields. Providing information through these articles is a surefire way to drive hot traffic to your web site.

Why is this so? Here are the benefits that writing articles can give your Internet business.

1. It’s absolutely free.

Too good to be true? Not. Okay, you have to pay for your Internet Service Provider. That’s it. All you need is your thoughts, your computer, and your hands. If you have those, nothing will stop you from typing words that will make you complete that article for your website. On which aspect of that process did you really shell out any money? Maybe later when your electric bills come.

2. Your website will be noticed in a short period of time.

Submit that article of yours to article directories that get the most web traffic and in no time your web site will be crawled. That is if you don’t forget including your resource box or byline.

3. Obtain back links automatically.

When you submit your articles to directories, surely, other websites will make use of your article too. With the copyright terms of your articles, the URL of your website will still be in tact and will subsequently direct more traffic to your website.

4. Improve your reputation.

As an Internet marketer, if you plainly display your products on your website, you will not gain much conversion rate. Conversion is when your traffic converts to sales. You have to show that you are knowledgeable on your field. And what better way to show that than by writing articles that will allow you some bragging rights, right?

Just make your creative juices flow and jot down or key in those ideas quickly to jumpstart your article writing momentum. With those benefits listed above, a writer’s block is the last problem you will ever be able to surmount.

There is a difference, you know!

In fact, people that don’t recognise the difference within a year after starting their business will suffer for this lack of knowledge until they do.

Let me give you an example to help you fully understand what I’m talking about. Suppose you went out this afternoon, purchased a computer system and some start-up business software at your local Office Max. You come home — all excited — ready to get your new business going. (Everyone has experienced this same type of feeling.) It gives you a great exhilarated feeling to finally take the first step to making your dream become a visual reality.

This excitement continues and mounts bigger day after day. You are so totally absorbed into your new business that you start forgetting about your normal, daily life. Your wife or husband calls you to come to dinner and you say, “In a minute.” However, your “minute” turns into three hours. (I guess, at this point, you could say that you’re “hooked.”)

After several weeks (or months) of this behaviour, your family starts feeling very neglected. Or, if you don’t have a family, perhaps your neighbour George or cousin Alisha might start feeling you are mad at them — or whatever.

Your wife, husband, kids, neighbour George or cousin Alisha would never admit they feel “neglected” — but the feeling is there just the same. After they have reached their tolerance level, they normally will start talking to you. They might ask, “How’s the business doing?” You’ll probably say, “Oh, great! I think I can really make this work.”

But the very next question out of their mouths will be, “How much money are you making?”

That is a question that immediately STOMPS DOWN your entrepreneurial spirit. Since you haven’t made any money (and because you have to answer their question), you’ll probably have to swallow your pride and say something like, “I haven’t made any money yet but I’m working on something right now that should do the trick.”

Now, whether you are working on anything specific or not, you have placed an invisible (and perhaps impossible) goal for yourself. You now believe that in order for you to prove to your family, neighbour or whoever, that you are NOT a failure — you have to show them CASH IN HAND! But . . .

Nothing Could Be Further From The Truth!

Making money and building a business are two DIFERENT things — especially when you are just starting to build a business. When two big corporations, for instance, decide to merge and become one, they always lose money in the first year or so. But in the third year they make more money than both companies had ever dreamed possible. It was worth the two-year loss!

In fact, that’s how you make money — by investing. Investing money is not the only way to make your business boom. Hard work and sacrifice is another way of investing. In other words, if you don’t have money to invest, you have to WORK for it. Plain and simple. If you’re looking for a way to have your cake and eat it too, you’ll end up a fool at the short end of the stick! Promise!

I know these are NOT words you want to hear. But whether you accept them or not is your choice. My job has been done. I have revealed the truth to you and I hope you accept it as fact.

I’m pleased I’ve cracked the £13,000 income mark, and with two days still to go until the end of this month, it’s looks like I’ll be earning a minimum of £26,500 by December 31st. And i’m sure that, somehow, I’ll earn the other £4,500 to make my years income £30,000 for 2009. This will be exactly half way to where I want to be. Not bad, considering last year I only earned £17,000 all year!

The cars didn’t sell on eBay as I hoped they would. I got offered £74.00 for the Volvo, when I was looking for £150, and instead of the £200 I was looking for for the BMW, I only got offered £110. It just displays, again, the culture we’re now in, where everybody wants something for nothing all the time.

I’m back selling software on my eBay shop. I’ve ‘pinched’ some of the mortgage money to get myself set up by buying stock directly from an wholesaler as oppose to that (unreliable) dropshipping company. My first order should be with me on Wednesday. For every £100 software I buy, I make £150 profit, after expenses. the only disadvantage here is that the minimum order from the wholesalers must be £100.

I’m hoping to back on the internet at home by Wednesday too. Only dial up, with a mobile internet connection, but it’s necessary, and I’ll be able to really kickstart the business.

It’s only 22 weeks till Christmas you know!!

Daily Income Target £164.39
Wages £100.00
Ebay Sales £7.49
Web Site £00.00
Blog £00.00
Other Sales £00.00
Amazon £0.00
Valued Opinions £0.00
YouGov £0.00
Published Books £0.00
Total £107.49

Today’s Shortfall: £56.90

Affiliate marketing is one way in which bloggers utilise their blog to generate revenue. The amount of revenue generated by a blog featuring affiliate marketing links may vary significantly depending on the amount of traffic the blog receives as well as the compensation offered for the affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing essentially entails creating a link on the blog to another company’s website. The other company then compensates the blog owner according to a previously agreed upon contract. This compensation may be awarded in a number of different ways. The blog owner may be compensated each time the advertisement is served, each time a unique website visitor clicks through the advertisement or each time a blog visitor performs a desired action such as making a purchase or registering with the website. This article will discuss some aspects of affiliate marketing which bloggers should understand including selecting opportunities carefully, maximizing the income potential for these opportunities and understanding the requirements associated with these affiliate marketing opportunities.

Selecting Affiliate Marketing Opportunities

There is a wide variety of affiliate marketing opportunities available. Many different companies and websites offer affiliate marketing opportunities. In most cases the blog owner simply needs to submit the website address of his blog along with some other basic information for approval. In most cases the company is not likely to reject the application unless the content of the website is deemed to be objectionable or otherwise in conflict of interest with the company’s goals. However, although getting approved to display affiliate links on your website is a rather simple process, this does not mean blog owners should select these affiliate marketing opportunities without discretion. It is a far better idea to carefully select affiliate marketing opportunities with companies who are of interest to the target audience of the blog.

A well focused blog that is reaching a specific target audience should seek to display marketing links directing website traffic to companies which complement the blog without acting as direct competition to the blog. This helps to ensure the blog visitors will not only be interested in the affiliate marketing links and therefore more likely to click on the links but will also help to ensure the blog visitors do not find the affiliate marketing links to be bothersome.

Maximising Affiliate Marketing Opportunities

Once blog owners have selected affiliate marketing opportunities it is time to consider how they can maximise the profit generated by these links. There are a couple of critical factors which blog owners should carefully consider to help maximize their profit from affiliate marketing. This includes regularly evaluating the effectiveness of the affiliate links and promoting the blog to maximise traffic.

Blog owners who incorporate affiliate marketing into their blog should regularly evaluate the effectiveness of the affiliate links. This can be done by comparing the percentage of blog visitors who click on the affiliate links to the overall blog traffic. A blog which has high traffic but a relatively small percentage of visitors who click on the affiliate links should consider making changes to attempt to entice more blog visitors to click on the links. These changes can involve the aesthetics, size or location of the advertisements. Making only one change at a time is recommended because it makes it easier for the blog owner to evaluate which changes are most beneficial.

Blog owners can also help to maximise the profit from their affiliate marketing opportunities by doing self promotion to drive additional website to the blog. This will likely be beneficial because higher website traffic will generally translate to greater profit from affiliate marketing. Additionally, the blog owner may want to occasionally mention companies for which they are an affiliate to generate interest in the advertisements on the website.

Understanding Affiliate Marketing Requirements

Finally, blog owners should pay careful attention to the affiliate marketing agreements they enter. This is important because some companies may place restrictions on the usage of a link to their website. This may include restrictions such as avoiding objectionable content, not including links or advertisements for direct competitors or restrictions on the appearance of the affiliate links. Failure to adhere to these guidelines may result in the blog losing affiliate privileges and the blog owner being denied compensation.

Blog marketing is not all that hard if you know what you are doing. However, if this is your very first blog and you are wondering how to get readers to it then you are in the right place. First let me just say that marketing your blog is going to require patience, and being consistent. You will have to update your blog frequently if you want to keep readers coming back for more. We are all guilty of making a blog, wanting it to be great, putting only one entry into it and then never going back to update it again. I think everyone in cyber world has done this at one time or another. Here are some great tips to use when trying to get your blog out there and get new readers.

Make sure that your blog has the track back feature. Let me tell you why. When you have the track back feature on your blog, you are allowing other people to link to your blog. Maybe someone has a post to post on their blog that is relevant to one of yours. They can use the talkback to your post, and send their readers to your blog so that they know what they are referring to. Another good thing to remember is that if someone gives you a track back, it is a courtesy to return that to their blog if at all possible.

Having a Google account and submitting a sitemap is almost a must when you are blog marketing. Doing so will allow Google to know how often you are updating your blog and they will automatically know of any changes that you have made to it as well. This will let Google get those new pages indexed faster and get them into search results much quicker than if you did not have the sitemap. There is a certain way you have to do the sitemap for Google, and they can explain that to you. Just know this is an important step to blog marketing.

Exchanging links with authority blogs and websites that are in your same market is another great way to get the word out about your blog. The authority sites are going to have a higher page rank, and will also be listed high in Google’s search results. So do some searches and check those out and see if they are up to exchanging links. If they are not, you could always just add those into your blogroll. You do not need permission to do that if they are not into linking. However, in the world of blogs, most blog owners are thankful for all links, and are willing to return the favour.

You want to be sure that all of your posts are formatted. Doing so will leave out any confusion for the search engines and you will have everything nice and neat and all organised. The label tags are there for a reason when you are dealing with blogs. So using them and not leaving them out is a great idea.

Tracking is another part of blog marketing that is so very important. You want to be able to track your visitors and clickers to know where they are coming from. You want to be able to tell what keywords they searched on to find your blog and where they did their searching. Doing so will help take out all of the guess work when it comes to blog marketing. You will know what keywords are working, and which are not.

Allowing RSS feeds from your blog is also another great blog marketing tool. You will find that when you allow RSS feeds, your blog is going to end up all over the internet with a link back to it and that is a good thing. This is a wonderful way to get links to your blog with little or no effort. People that subscribe to your blog’s RSS feeds are able to then post your blog posts on their sites or blogs. Which in return gives you a link on their site or page that they have you on.

Blog marketing is only as hard as you make it. Use these tips and get your blog out there and seen today!

Blog marketing is a combination of many things all put together to make one great blog that is successful and that has many readers. However, if you think that you have done everything possible, chances are that you have not. Or that you should do more. When you are working on marketing a blog, you never get to a stopping point. There is always something that you can do to continue to grow and make your blog well known. What are these things you ask? Keep reading to find out.

Blog marketing will keep you very busy. If you have more than one blog going that you want the highest and the best rankings for, you may have to hire some help. However make sure that you have good content. If you do not have good content, there is no reason for your readers to come back to your blog after their first visit. Keep writing good content as well. If it starts to go down hill, you may find that your reader status does as well and that could hurt you in the long run. Good content is key.

Something else that many blog owners do not realise when they are marketing their blog is that it needs to be updated. Post content in your blog regularly for the best results. Maybe once a day is good for you? Perhaps you are more comfortable with one post a week? Whichever it is, be consistent with it and know that it will pay off to continue posting as you should.

Just having a blog about anything, or random subjects is not always a great idea. You have to have a niche market in order to market your blog successfully. For example, lets say one day you made a blog post on the current news, and the next day it was on your current marital situation. You will not be able to keep a blog audience posting off the wall things time after time. Find your area of expertise and run with it. You can be an expert on that market in your blogging community. Readers will go to your blog daily to find out what it is that the expert is going to say next. It really does work this way.

Make sure that your blog design stands out. You don’t want your blog to look and feel like everyone else’s, so make it different. Having your own look is a huge plus in the blog marketing world. You will find that most blogs all look the same and you can have your own look by just using HTML and adjusting the code to suit your taste. You are going to see that this will truly make a difference with your blog as well as your readers. Try to get a theme that is going to match the market that you are promoting in your blog. Doing so will make it look even more professional.

Do you know SEO? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. If you are not familiar with SEO, you need to get that way and fast. Using SEO will help you to market your blog to the fullest extent possible. Optimising your blog posts as well as the HTML will get you results that you will love. Studying everything that you can find on SEO will help you immensely. You will find that there is so much more to bog marketing than just making a post on your blog everyday.

If you don’t all ready, be sure that your blog has the RSS feeds. Having these feeds will allow others to be able to link to you blog. Having many links a huge part of blog marketing that you want to take advantage of as well. When someone uses the RSS feeds from your blog, they are able to get the posts that you make, and will give you a link back from their blog, or website, whichever they posted it on.

Blog and email marketing are two totally different things. They are two complete different ways to market something, whether it is a product, or a service. You are going to find that just because someone may use email marketing to make an income, does not mean that they always use blog marketing as well.

Blog marketing is when you use a blog to promote a service or a product. You can market the product or service so that it appeals to others, and is something that they might want or need. By using a blog you can get the word out about the product that you are using and let others know all about it. There are several ways to do this. It can be done as simple or as complicated as you want. For example, you can market your blog by exchanging links with other blogs that are relevant to yours. You can also leave comments on other blogs that will in return get you more visitors and readers to your own blog. Don’t forget to update your blog as often as possible as well. As that will make a huge impact on your blog.

Email marketing is when someone uses an email to get the word out about a product or a service. You simply try and get your visitors to sign up for newsletters, and then send an occasional email out to all of them that subscribed. However, you will also find that email marketing is great for many other things than just getting the word out. You can put affiliate links in your newsletters and hope that your readers will sign up under you and you will get a commission for those sales.

Marketing in every way is pretty much the same. You have to know who your audience is and who wants what you are selling. Once you know this, the rest of it is relatively easy. Whether you are email marketing, affiliate marketing, or email marketing. Even if you are into marketing offline, the same rules apply. You will need to know who wants what you have to sell and you should have no problems selling it.

Blog and email marketing are alike in many ways, but yet also very different. When you are using a blog for marketing, you are going to see that you have to post what you are selling on the blog. But for email marketing, you can use an email to those interested parties. When you use a website to have people opt in to your newsletter for email marketing, you know that you are not sending spam, but something that they requested from your site. This is something that they asked to be sent when they sign up for a newsletter. Whereas, if you are marketing a blog, you would do this much the same way as you would a website, and get visitors to come to you.

Whichever you prefer, whether it is blog marketing or email marketing you can still get the results that you want and are looking for. Just know that it takes time and persistence to achieve what you want, and you can get just that by marketing online. Patience is key to getting your blog out there to everyone that is interested in it.