What Most Online Marketers Forget

It seems like almost every online marketer is completely focused on search engine rankings, distributing articles and working their rear ends off for traffic. One thing they forget about is what so many traditional brick-and-mortar businesses already know and practice because it’s very effective.

You can buy all the ads you want for your business and you can experience some great results, but if you’d like some more almost no-cost promotion that helps you build word-of-mouth and great reputation for your online business…you really should be developing your own publicity campaign through press releases.

When a media outlet talks about you, portrays you as an expert or mentions your business…that is more priceless than any advertising. It’s like an actual endorsement of you and your business. Who wouldn’t want that?

Well, it’s easier to do than you might think.

You may already know that Alice Seba has a complete system that shows you exactly how to write and distribute a press release to get noticed by the media….potentially saving your hundreds or thousands of dollars in advertising costs.

She has just added a new and unique piece of software called Press Release Profits Builder. It allows you to choose from HTML or plain text formatted releases and takes you step-by-step through the whole press release writing process. When you’re done, the software will produce a perfectly formatted release for you.

Here’s a note from Alice about the software:

“Now…let me be clear. This isn’t some magical software that allows you to click your mouse a few times and your release will be ready. Anybody who tries to sell you something like that is doing you an injustice. If you want the media’s attention, you’ve got to be unique and have something they want to share with their readers and viewers. This software helps you put together a release designed to get noticed.”

Learn more about the course and software, Click Here.

How to Conduct Target Market Research

Every business should be doing it, but unfortunately they either aren’t doing it at all or aren’t doing it effectively.  What am I talking about?  Market research, that’s what.  Without conducting detailed research about your target market, your business won’t reach it’s potential and will more than likely meet it’s demise.

In order to tell you HOW to conduct market research you must know what it is.  In a nutshell, market research is research that you do in order to determine what it is that makes your customers buy.  Here is a list of things that you can do to conduct market research that will tell you what you what your customers want and need so that you can make more sales and grow your business.

First, find the question or questions you want answers to.  Be as specific as possible so that you have the answers you need.  Going too broad may not really get to the answers you are really in search of.  For instance, if you are thinking of adding a product to your line, is it something your target market is in need or want of?  What would they most likely spend on a product or service such as the one you are asking about?

Take the questions and get your answers by doing the following:

• Conduct a survey of current and potential customers.
• Visit online forums and groups that include members of your market.  Remember to build relationships in these groups. Don’t just go to the forums and post your survey or question.
• Interview other business owners in your market.
• Monitor business trends in your market by reading and watching various media outlets.
• Research your competition by being a customer and/or inquiring about their products or services.
• Mail or telephone interviews.
• For those with online businesses, set up a test page revolving around the product or service you are thinking of offering.  Give plenty of time to test the page and the traffic and activity of the visitors.

These are only a few of the ways you can conduct research for your target market.  The key isn’t what research you do, it’s the fact that you are doing something to learn more about the habits of that market.  By taking the time to find out more about the people you are targeting, you’ll come to realize that knowing those in your market is one of the best things you can do for you business.

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Moms Want Content – Give it to Them

Statistics show women control the purse strings in the household budgets and they’re spending a great deal of that budget online. A large percentage of these women are moms turning to the net for information on all sorts of household and parenting issues.

Most of these moms don’t necessarily go online with the view to buy a specific product.  In many cases they’re just looking for information first, whether it be information on how to teach their toddler to potty train, how to stop sibling rivalry or how to cook nutritious meals for their family, moms want and are looking for information.

“What Moms want [online] is information,” says Ken Goldstein, EVP and Managing Director of Disney Online.

Give them the information they’re looking for and you’re tapping into an enormous market: there are 31 million moms online, and they’re spending more time online than they are watching TV (13.2 hours/week vs. 7.6 hours/week).

Whatever your online business is, you’ll want to make sure you’re marketing to the lucrative mom market, and the number one way by far to reach moms on the net is to provide the high quality content and information they’re looking for.

Eliminate hype and ultra-creative ads

Moms don’t want to see how clever you are, Goldstein says. “It’s not Superbowl advertising. It’s clear messages, features and benefits, and more about information than entertainment.”

That’s right, moms are practical creatures.  We want to know exactly why we should use certain products, how it works and most importantly will it work for us.  A sure way to do this is by providing quality content first and then and only then presenting your sales offer.

And make no mistake; moms are not only practical they’re smart.  They’ll spot a sales pitch a mile away and all it takes is one click and they’re gone.  However, approach a mom online the right way and she can be one of your most loyal customers for life.

Always, concentrate on providing practical, quality information first.  Provide informative articles, real life product reviews, and don’t forget to list product features and benefits (include the down points too).  Get these things right and you’ll tap into one of the biggest spending powers on the net, moms.

If you’re looking for great content to appeal to moms, get it cost-effectively here.

Moms and Online Shopping: How to Reach this Lucrative Market

So great is the boom in Internet retailing, that a Forrest Research survey estimated U.S. online sales would grow from $96 billion in 2003, to more than $200 billion by 2008.  Who is out there, doing all that buying?

A good part of the market is women, particularly young mothers who are part of the consumer group that cite a preference for Internet shopping to avoid crowds, get better prices, compare products, and reduce the need to travel around to find what they want.

In 2003, women in the 18-34 year age bracket made up 15% of Internet users.  They also constituted 24% of the buyers from cosmetic and fragrance sites, 20% of the customers for wearing apparel, and 22% of the shoppers for jewelry and other luxury items.

With 50% of online purchases being made by someone from a household where the chief wage earner is between 25 and 55 years of age, there is growing evidence that the family unit, particularly where women are responsible for the buying of goods for personal use and gifts for others, significantly impacts the annual sales figures for all online retailers.

It also impacts local retail sales, with industry statistics showing that the research done by potential customers online, results in $1.50 spent locally, for every $1 spend on Internet shopping.

According to a recent survey conducted by Marketing Sherpa, one of the best ways to tap into the lucrative mom’s market is through solid information. If you’re looking for great content to appeal to moms, get it cost-effectively here.

Marketing to Digital Moms: How To Reach Out To Today's Tech-Savvy Moms

Gone are the days when the word “Mom” conjures images of a female who cannot operate the video recorder or navigate her way through the latest video game, and only switches on the computer to send an email to Grandma.

According to a study published in 2009 by Razorfish and Cafemom, up to 27 million (84%) of Moms online are tech savvy. They use Web 2.0 platforms and shop online. In fact, they use communication technology and social media to connect with others, find advice and information, express themselves, do research on products they’re interested in, and simplify their multi-tasking lives.

“Digital Moms” have become so dominant on the Internet that the researchers concluded they are not a niche, but are rather the mainstream.

If you aren’t reaching out to digital Moms online yet, you might just be missing out on a significant market.

Consider these numbers from the United States Census Bureau:

- Women control 80% of household spending. Even if they earn only a part or none of the total household income, women determine how much of the household income will be spent.

- Women do 60% of online shopping. Women do a lot of research online before making a purchase and actually make up more than half of online shoppers.

- Women buy 81% of all products and services. Women shop not only for themselves, but also for the home, family members, gifts for friends, teachers and associates.

The problem is, many online businesses just don’t seem to know what to do when it comes to marketing to digital Moms. They make the mistake of treating all Moms online as if they all had the same needs and reasons for using the Internet. Not true, according to the Razorfish/Cafemom report. For example, younger Moms tend to be more comfortable with social networking and mobile surfing. On the other hand, Moms 45 years old and above gravitate more towards online news, product reviews and podcasting.

What is the best way to reach out to today’s digital Moms?

- Provide relevant content. Some of the online Mom’s interests depend on what life stage she is in. For instance, digital Moms with young children naturally look online for information about parenting and child health. But there are topics that most digital Moms are interested in, no matter how old their children are. These include fashion and cooking.

Mom PLR Ebooks provides regular private label rights content just for Moms. For a monthly supply of PLR recipes and product reviews, check out the “All Mom Content” package of All Private Label Content.

- Be present in the channels digital Moms are using. Again according to the Razorfish/Cafemom study, more than half of digital Moms use email, search engines, social networks, gaming and online news. Emerging channels used by about one-third of digital Moms include online videos, consumer reviews and blogs.

Aside from PLR Ebooks, your monthly subscription to includes a 5-day Ecourse and 26 newsletter topic ideas – perfect for digital Moms who use Email everyday. If you’re interested in providing consumer reviews, All Private Label Content includes 10 product profiles reviews every month.

- Know the particular needs, interests and online habits of your Mom audience. Digital Moms have varying needs and surfing behaviors, depending on their age and their children’s ages. The best way to accurately understand your particular Mom audience is to listen to them. Ask your list subscribers what their concerns are. Conduct your own surveys. Hang out in Mommy forums. Pay attention.

The majority of mothers online are digital Moms. They are tech savvy, smart consumers who make informed decisions when shopping online. They’re also online for social networking and even gaming. But they have varying needs depending on their life stage and their children’s ages. To market effectively to digital Moms, you need to give them what they’re looking for online, be where they are, and pay attention to their needs. Take care of digital Moms and you’ll have a profitable online business.

Starting Your Own Home Business

By: Terri Seymour

OK, so you have researched the facts, weighed the pros and cons and have finally decided that a home business is right for you. But now you need to figure out what type of business you want and how to proceed with marketing this business.

There are many types of home businesses but not all of them are right for all people. You need to ask yourself these questions: Do I want to start my own business from scratch? Do I just want to join an MLM and sell for someone else? Do I want to sell physical products or digital products? Do I want to do all the work online or offline too? Do I want help with my business or do I want to go solo? Do I just want to become an affiliate and sell other people’s online products?

MLM/Direct Sales – The company you sell for is in control of how you run your business. You are paid a commission for sales and usually have to recruit a downline.

Distributorship – You are in control of your own business. You keep all profits and do not need to recruit a downline.

Digital Products - Selling digital products such as ebooks is done online and there is no need for an inventory, shipping or worrying about damaged goods.

Affiliate Programs - many people make a good online income just by selling other people’s products.

Service Provider - This would include such things as virtual assistant, party planner, pet sitter, etc.

These types of businesses can be combined to form one very successful business. Such as applying for a distributorship and then also offering ebooks on your online store site.

Once you have chosen your business and gotten all your permits, tax numbers, etc, you will need to start marketing your new business. There are countless ways to do this online and offline.

Offline Marketing

Offline marketing would include: business cards, flyers, attending your community events and networking, attending expos, craft fairs, trade shows, postcards, phone calls, newsletter advertising, door hangers, radio, fundraisers, school functions, catalog distribution, mailing lists, home parties, car magnets, brochures, seminars, yellow pages and more. Use your creativity to come up with your own unique marketing ideas.

Online Marketing

Marketing strategies online include: link exchanges, search engines, autoresponders, online auctions, email press release, online chats/seminars, ebooks, blogging, tutorials, ad swapping, ezine publishing, article marketing and much more!

To market your home business takes a lot of work, consistency, time and commitment. Handing out a couple business cards and throwing up a website will not suffice. Work as many as these marketing ideas as you can. Find out which ones really work for you and then expand on them. Then try more!

I want to make sure you understand that you cannot treat your business as a hobby. If you want a successful business with a full time income, you have to work your business full time. If you find one of these programs that claim you can make thousands a week for 5 minutes of work, (that actually work) please let me know. In the meantime, start using some of these ideas and get your business name out there!

Article Source: wahm-articles.com

About the Author: Terri Seymour has several years online experience and has helped many people start their own business. Read about these marketing strategies and more in her ebook, How to Market Your Home Business. Visit her site www.seymourproducts.com for this ebook and lots more resources for your home business. Subscribe to her ezine with free bonus report: 77 Ways to Get Traffic

New Look!

Well, we have a whole new look and focus now here at HBRD. It is more user-friendly, filled with more home business companies, tips and helpful articles. Lower than ever advertising prices and a clear focus for growth!

Our old blog was on blogger. We have moved it all over here and have the blog on the same server as site for a more convenient site.

Looking forward to sharing home business tips with you!

5 Key Elements to the Value of a Back Link

By: Anthony Kristovich III

Back links are an often-discussed, but rarely fully understood topic. Your site’s reputation and Page Rank depend very greatly on backlinks, so knowing what makes your back link reputation for your site more important and have more value is the next logical step.

So, you might ask then what things affect how much a given backlink is worth towards your reputation, and what can you do to maximize your backlink value.

While there are many things that affect how much a backlink is worth to your website, many are unknown to the world that search engines, especially Google, take into account.

5 main things that make up most of your backlink score

Page Rank. The page rank, or reputation, of the webpage that links to you giving you a backlink is the biggest factor. Page is ranked per page, not per website, and page rank is spread through outgoing links.

Anchor text. This is the text showing as the link text, the underlined text you click on (not always underlined, but you get the point). This text can have a very large impact on your backlinks. Google expects to see varied link texts in a normal situation, and it has been said that Google will only count a certain number of backlinks with the same exact text. Optimally, you want your keywords are you aiming for on your website to be in your backlink text if you can help it.

Relevant sites. It’s Especially with Google’s Jagger update, back links from relevant-themed websites is worth more than from unrelated websites. This means if you have a website about cars, backlinks from other car-type sites will give you more value than backlinks from a cooking website. This makes sense, as each backlink is a recommendation or a vote, and related recommendations have more authority or hold more importance.

Location. The location of the back link to your website also makes a difference. The farther towards the top of the page, the more the backlink is weighed.

Age. The age of a backlink makes a difference. It may take up to 6 months to see the full effect of a back link. This makes it a great reason to exchange backlinks with sites whose PR has not yet gotten to where it will, as you will get even greater advantage once they do reach that level.

So, the question of the day is what stuff can you help in reality.

Page Rank may or may not be an issue, as getting in a backlink while a website is newer will gain you a good advantage in the age category once they have grown to their potential. The main to remember here is to make sure they are a website that you would want to trade links with regardless of page rank.

Location you usually do not have much of a say in, and the age is out of your hands. So, the best concept is to concentrate on trading with websites whose content compliments your own, or is at least similar in theme for the best gain. If you can, try to get your target keywords into the anchor text if at all possible. Google definitely looks at the anchor text and takes this into consideration. Varied link text has been proven to give an added edge to a website and put it over the top into the lead.

Article Source: http://www.homebusinessresourcedirectory.com

About the Author: Tony Kristovich is the owner of http://www.EZLinkSystem.com a link exchange website where you can register for free to exchange links with other webmasters like you.

NOTE: You may use this article for reprint ONLY if you DO NOT change the article in ANY way, AND you keep the source and bio IN TACT with ALL links ACTIVE!

Make Money Online Selling on eBay

By: Steve Bench

You may know every Internet Giant, from Amazon, Yahoo, to AOL, Google, but not forget eBay. Only eBay is so close that home based business can make money online. It is the easiest way to make money online selling on eBay.

You may not realize it yet, but you are about to begin an exciting new lifestyle! The world of online auctions is not only a very profitable world, but it can also mean a lifestyle change unlike any you could ont have imagined just a few years ago.

eBay is now the world’s largest marketplace and the online auctions model which eBay first brings into business actually allows you the opportunity to make money online quickly. So why not use this to the advantage of your website and your business? By creating an easy-to-use eBay Store and listing some hot, in-demand items at a small discount from the price on your website, you can drive traffic from eBay back to your website as well as creating sales and revenue for your company through eBay. eBay Stores monthly fees is nominal and can easily be paid off from the profit of just a few small sales. eBay Store is set up to where your item can be listed automatically saving your valuable time and making the maintenance of your eBay Store effortless.

Compare this with the majority of businesses out eBay, which may actually take a year or couples of years before they realize any real profits, you will feel satisfied. Is it amazing to make money online selling on eBay?

By simply understanding and knowing what you are doing, you can be very successful doing your online business to make money selling on eBay.

The traffic on eBay is massive, check out the figures for yourself at any source you trust. eBay has a staggering 10 million items on sale at any point in time. The site gets 1.5 billion auction page views each month. This is the key that makes it so easy for ordinary people to make money on eBay. It is simply a matter of taking your products to where the customers are waiting for it. But you need to know what you are doing. It all boils down to getting the formula to maximize your auction effectiveness.

You can be found by more eBay users by being as descriptive as possible in the Item Description and by using as many keywords as possible that describe your item and industry within the Item Title. Reports show that over 90% of searches on eBay are done using the search facility. What users do not know about eBay search facility is that by default it only searches the item titles – not the descriptions of the items.

Imagine building a website that got more than 10 million unique visitors per Day. Do you think you might be able to find a way to make money online selling on eBay? One of the greatest benefits of selling on eBay is this sheer volume of traffic that you automatically acquire as a registered seller of eBay.

eBay allows you to set up an account with only some basic personal information and a credit card for billing. There is typically no up-front investment required! Meanwhile, you can use PayPal as your tool to collect your money from selling on eBay. If you compare this to traditional business, you have to admit this is for your utility.

One of the main concerns that sellers have about trading on internet is: How do I know that they are going to pay? That is not a question at all. eBay and PayPal have protections for sellers and protect buyers also. One protection is feedback. This is simply a recorded comment (either positive, neutral or negative) left by both the buyer and seller after a transaction ends, telling future buyers and sellers how that particular transaction went.

Just imagine the facts that there are numerous of people making money online. The facts are that there are numerous of people who make money online selling on eBay. So why you are not the next one?

Article Source: http://www.homebusinessresourcedirectory.com

About the Author: With my Selling on Ebay Blog, you can find free information about how to get the most out of your E-bay selling experience! Check out my blog by going to http://selling-on-e-bay.blogspot.com

NOTE: You may use this article for reprint ONLY if you DO NOT change the article in ANY way, AND you keep the source and bio IN TACT with ALL links ACTIVE!

Cascading Style Sheets Make Web Design Easy

By: Jim Pretin

When the HTML programming language was originally developed, the various HTML tags that were used were intended only to specify what each piece of content was. In other words, HTML tags like the paragraph tag, or the header tag, were only supposed to tell the web browser that a certain piece of text should be displayed as a paragraph, or that a particular line of text was to be a header. The web browser itself was supposed to take care of the style of the web page itself.

However, as the HTML language became more and more complex, and evolved from the original HTML into HTML 4.0 and even more complicated versions of the language such as XHTML, the web browser no longer took care of style by itself. Programmers had many more tags and attributes at their disposal, such as the bgcolor attribute, the font tag, and a plethora of others.

As a result, developing a web page became very complicated, because programmers now had to not only specify what was to be on the web page, but had to indicate background colors, fonts, text sizes, and layouts. A solution to this quandary emerged in the form of what is called Cascading Style Sheets.

Cascading style sheets specify how HTML elements are to be displayed. A cascading style sheet is normally an external file saved with a .css file extension and is uploaded with the rest of your web pages.

This .css file specifies a layout for a web page given certain HTML tags and attributes. Then, all the programmer has to do is reference that .css file in the HTML code for the web page he or she is developing and just layout the web page properly, and the .css file will automatically format all of your tags and attributes as specified. Specific styles can be applied to everything from paragraphs to email forms and much more.

There are many websites where programmers can buy or download for free various .css files that they want to use to handle the layout of their web page. All you need to do is look for style sheets on any major search engine and you will find tons of links to sites that will show you how to create style sheets or sites where you can just download for free or buy style sheets that you want to use to design your website.

Basically, there are two different ways that you can use a cascading style sheet. The first way is by using the style sheet externally. Simply upload the .css file that you have either downloaded from somewhere else or created yourself, and then reference that file in the HTML code for the web page you are designing by placing some code within the head tag of the web page. There are many different tutorial websites where you can learn how to create the code to reference an external style sheet.

Also, you can actually create your style sheet internally by actually coding the style of certain kinds of tags within the head tag of the web page itself rather than saving the style sheet as an external file.

Also, you can use what is called inline styles, where you specify the style of a specific element within the web page so that the style will apply to just that particular tag and not all of the tags on the web page.

Whatever you decide to do, as a web designer you should become familiar with cascading style sheets and use them, especially if you do a lot of web design projects. You should accumulate your own library of style sheets, either by creating them on your own or by downloading them from somewhere else.

Having these style sheets on hand will make your job as a web designer faster and more efficient. It will enable you to design web pages very quickly without having to focus so much on the design, and then you can show your customer many different sample designs of the web page you have created by just changing a single line of code and using a different .css file each time. Then, your customer can just choose the style that he or she likes best.

Article Source: http://www.homebusinessresourcedirectory.com

About the Author: Jim Pretin is the owner of http://www.forms4free.com a service that helps programmers make email forms.

NOTE: You may use this article for reprint ONLY if you DO NOT change the article in ANY way, AND you keep the source and bio IN TACT with ALL links ACTIVE!

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