Getting Started in Internet Marketing

Phew!

I have been away for ages.

I would like to say it is because I have been making stacks of money but unfortunately that is not the case.

They say that 90% of the business opportunity stuff on the internet is a scam and I have tried to stay clear of as much as possible.

Unfortunately I have been a victim too just recently. In my naivety I fell for something which sounded too good to be true and it was?????

At present I cannot give you any details until various things have been finalized but all I want to say is be very wary of laying good money up front to a service without a proven long term track record.

I will be back later with more details and some sound advice as to how to perform "due diligence" to make sure you aren't caught out like me too!

TTFN

Paul

Well I must be honest and say that now the money is really beginning to pour in. I have been marketing for four months now and the flow has been mostly in an outward direction but at long last the tide has turned.

This is a great relief.

The main cause of this turn is a gradual increase in traffic to all of my sites.

I have finally become more competent at writing Google ads and my click through rates have gone up whilst my costs have gone down.

Also I have found another excellent product.

www.MoreThanTraffic.UK.com

This is a traffic generation service with a difference. They don't charge you until they have made you an extra £62,000 from your web-site.

$100,000 or £62,0000

They also guarantee to make this for you in four months or you pay NOTHING!

www.MoreThanTraffic.UK.com

It must be worth a look.

Check it out now!

www.MoreThanTraffic.UK.com

Till next time.

Paul

Hi,

Yes, its me again.

What's the latest good thing?

http://www.1StepSystem.com

How about the Ultimate Marketers Toolkit! How about a product which teaches you from the basics to the most esoteric and helps you promote any product or any website you care to produce? How about a product with an awesome affiliate program which will pay you 83% of the product selling price.

Yes 83%!

83%

So where can you get your hands on this wonderful product? Where can you buy into a product which will produce your very own website with a free 37 minute tele-seminar sales pitch!?? No cold calls, no closing deals, no phone calls, no persuading friends or relatives to buy usesless vitamins to keep your sales figures up.

http://www.1StepSystem.com

Well despite the fact that the total value of the resources in the toolbox is well over $2000, this product has a sale price of $597($607 with a $100 early bird discount) and you get $500 from each sale. Yes that's right $500! To cap it all it has built in leverage.

Yes Leverage Too!

Now forget for a second your fears about pyramid schemes, MLM marketing, Network Marketing. All these schemes passed most of the income further and further up the 'Upline' so that the only people who made any real money were the people at the top. This scheme includes automatic leverage but it only stays at your level.

You start off as a Marketing Associate and the first two sales you make go to your sponsor. This makes you into a Qualified Associate (on a permanent basis), so all future sales are 100% yours to keep.

100%

Therefore after you make $500 for your next sale you also make $1000 for his/her next two sales. Therefore the one sale generated $1500. More importantly you paid for the marketing of the first sale but you didn't pay for the marketing of the other two, it was done by your customer and so was essentially FREE to you. If you look at the figures this makes an enormous difference to the earning potential and because it only stops at that one level you start to earn real money very quickly. I have already started to see money coming into my paypal account. That feels really good!......But it gets even better!

Yes it can get better. With the two $500 fees he passes to you he also passes on the two Marketing Associates too and so you get their next 2 sales each making a total of $2000! So that first single sale has now generated $3500!!!!!

http://www.1StepSystem.com

You may at this point say that this scheme cannot continue at this rate as there are not enough people who would be interested. Well the product is a great learning tool for anyone who seriously wants to get into internet marketing. And the affiliate program alone makes this a very attractive deal. Remember there are approximately 152 Million people accessing the internet at the moment and that is growing every day. An awful lot of people want to make money on line and this is a very good opportunity for those willing to invest in their training.

So is it an excellent deal?

You Betcha!.

Go get it!

http://www.1StepSystem.com

TTFN

Paul

Hello again!
Now I know you haven't had an update for a while and the reason for that is two fold. One I have only recently got back from a holiday with my kids and two I wanted to give you a small break. This helps to illustrate two very important points. This business will allow you to take some time off occasionally and when you do, do remember to spend it with your children! Secondly when you are not 'taking time off' you will need to actually take some time to go ahead and DO some of the things I have suggested.

Now remember!
We aim to give you important hints and tips about setting up your very own home business. Making it clear and simple how easily you too can set up your own website and start to make money on-line. We would be very happy to answer specific requests and potential problems. Help me to make this blog worthwhile for you personally, by giving me feedback on what you need to know.

So let me start this time by asking you a few questions.

Have you started your Blog?

Have you joined some good affiliate programs?

Have you set up an ASK campaign?

If NOT, then WHY NOT!

Seriously the one thing I can actually guarantee is that if you just read a lot and don't do anything you won't make any money!!

Go and do it right now!

Well at least as soon as you have read todays missive....

Now what did it say at the top of the sheet, are yes Google Adwords. Now we have mentioned them briefly in previous newsletters but perhaps we should cover them in more detail.

Google adwords are mini classified ads you place on the google search engine site. These are the links you see down the right hand side of the search page.

The important point is that these are very short 'pithy' ads which need to quickly grab the attention of the searcher. More importantly the ads must be finely balance against the keywords that you use.

Much has been said about keywords but they are possibly the most important factors in driving traffic to your site. There are various keyword tools on the net but the simplest one is found within the Google adwords site itself. This allows you to type in any starter keywords and it will give you a whole bunch of similar related ones around the same theme.

How many keywords should you use? Well as many as possible is one answer but you need to make sure that people searching on those keywords would really be interested in your products. One of the archane ways that Google works is that your pay per click for the ads so no clicks means no fee. That is good, but there is a catch. When you bid a price you decide up to how much you are willing to pay for each click. Google then decides how much you pay and what position you lie in in the list based on a whole series of factors.

The popularity of the keyword.

The other bids for the same keywords.

The click through rate.

This last one is vital. The click through rate is the number of impresions taken to get one click through. This is usually expressed as a percentage. So a 2% clickthrough rate means that 50 impresions will usually produce one click. This is Google's way of assessing relevance.  One thing that all search engines aspire to is to provide the perfect search. Ideally the prospect would type in a search and receive one result which is the very thing he is looking for. This would be almost imposssible but it is the target of all search engine engineers. So from their point of view relevance is king!

How many times have you been frustrated by  a search result with several miilion possibilities and the first four or five pages aren't even vaguely correct. So if you copy for the adwords ad is good and your bid price is reasonable and you get a high click through rate then Google assumes you have properly assessed what people are looking for with those keywords. This might mean that you pay less even to be higher up in the ranking. So someone further down could be paying more than you on exactly the same keywords because his click through rate is not as good. Google rewards writers of good ads.

So you need to learn how to write good ads!

One good source of info is a gentleman by the name of Perry Marshall. He has developed a special set of tools and courses which can help you get started. Some of these do cost money but he also produces a short five day course which is free!

Check it out on: -

http://perrymarshall.com/cmd.php?af=364893

One of the best bits about Google Adwords is that it allows you very easily to set up several versions of your ad and do split testing to see which one produces the highest click through rate. Split testing is something that we may discuss in more detail later but suffice it to say that you should always use at least two ads and at least two sets of sales copy and play them off against each other to try to find the one which produces the most income.

One very useful tip that I can give you is the use of delimiters and parentheses. Now before your eyes glaze over too much let me explain.

When you search on Make Money you will get any page that has these words on anywhere and in any order. When you search on "Make Money" you will only get those pages which have these words in this order. When you search on [Make Money] you will only get pages with that exact two word phrase on them.

What difference does that make?

Well it all comes down to keywords and relevance again. The more specific keyword [Make Money] is believed by the engineers to produce more relevant results than the more general term and so often you get to pay less for the same keywords. Therefore when you are adding your keyords make sure that you include all three types. i.e. your list should look thus: -

make money
"make money"
[make money]

This can sometimes reduce your cost per click by as much as 30%. In some circumstances it can even place you higher in the rankings despite this cheaper cost. (For those who haven't worked it out that would be a good thing!!)

Adwords therefore allows you to simply and cheaply test out your copywriting skills in minutes rather than weeks and fine tune your ads through the very rapid feedback of clicks.....

Next time I will be finishing off the course with a summary of all the hints and tips so far including all the appropriate links so if anyone has managed to delete one of the previous newsletters by mistake then don't worry. From then on it is up to you to get out there and start building your very own 'Portable Empire'. Still feel free to email me directly with particular problems. I will from time to time send appropriate hints and tips about new developments and new products you may find of interest.

Till next time.

Take care and keep learning.

Paul Cronin

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Email "Toll Booths" Coming Soon

- by Jim Edwards

© Jim Edwards - All Rights reserved


http://www.thenetreporter.com
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The end of the free ride for email marketing looms on the
horizon.

The days of building up or buying a big email list and
freely using it to market and sell online are numbered like
the dinosaurs heading for an ice age cold snap.

The technical and time costs of dealing with email traffic
(primarily driven by rampant illegal spam) will soon break
the back of both Internet service providers (ISPs) and
online email services.

Major online players like AOL and MSN are currently
wrestling with two solutions to the problem, but I
personally think the almighty dollar will win out in the
end.

The two solutions proposed to stem the tide of commercial
spam once and for all revolve around either "white listing"
email senders or charging a "toll" (typically .25-1 cent per
email message) to allow email through.

Currently, ISPs and email providers can either maintain
their own white lists, as in the case of AOL, or the can
share one.

In the "old" days, companies could (and still do) subscribe
to "black lists" (like SpamHaus.org) which exclude email
senders based on reports of spamming and other factors.

Though the "black list" method rates the least accurate,
it's currently the most popular simply because it requires
the least effort by companies trying to block spam.

However, as spammers get smarter, black listing has proven
an ineffective spam deterrent and ISPs must get proactive if
they hope to survive.

However, an inherent weakness in the "white list" system
makes charging for commercial email inevitable.

Since white listing requires effort on the part of the ISP
or email provider (they must ultimately pay real people to
manage the list), this means additional cost.

Unlike a relatively inexpensive subscription to a "black
list service" which gets implemented automatically by
software filters, white listing requires people to do work
which carries a real world cost.

Bottom line: most ISPs and email services will not be able
to create, maintain or implement a white list for very long
without charging.

Yet, consumers tired of the avalanche of spam are demanding
effective protection by those they pay for Internet and
email access.

Thus, any service hoping to survive long-term must adopt a
hybrid of both the white list and "toll booth" approaches.

This means not only evaluating the legitimacy of every
commercial email sender's methods, but also charging them
for the email they send through a particular service or
network. It's inevitable.

Now, the cry that immediately goes up at this point sounds
like this, "What about the "little guys" who can't afford to
pay the fee or the family newsletters that aren't
commercial? What about them?"

In a perfect world, their email would go through.

In the real world, their email will get lost even more
frequently in the future than it does now in the existing
tangle of email filters and inconsistent white and black
listing.

The hope of survival and prosperity for the "little guy"
lies squarely in the hands of blogging and RSS feeds.

Since blogging and rss feeds enable consumers to subscribe
directly to information using an RSS "reader," they
completely bypass the need to send email.

This eliminates the "middle man" of an email provider and
puts control over what content gets received squarely in the
hands of the consumer.

Though this technology has existed for several years now,
awareness by mainstream consumers of what RSS feeds are and
how to subscribe to them has been relatively slow.

The biggest contributor to the slow adoption in the
mainstream has been the absence of a universally distributed
RSS "reader" on every computer (similar to how Outlook or
Outlook Express on every Windows PC helped make email
universally understood).

But that should also change shortly as more RSS readers get
included in Web browsers and email programs in the near
future.

So while the "big guys" will push their messages to
consumers by paying what will surely amount to an ever-
increasing "toll" to get their emails through, the "little
guys" will "pull" consumers to them with subscriptions to
blogs and RSS feeds.

Whether it happens this year, next year, or the year after -
make no mistake - the email "toll booth" is coming for
commercial emailers and newsletter publishers.

So, if you depend on sending email for your company's
profits, either get ready, plan, and budget for the new
tolls, or start making arrangements to distribute your
content via blogs and RSS feeds, because the market will
shortly force you to make a choice.

--
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the
co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how
to use fr^e articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted
visitors to your website, affiliate links, or blogs...

-=-=-==-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Need MORE TRAFFIC to your website or affiliate links?
"Turn Words Into Traffic" reveals the secrets for driving
Thousands of NEW visitors to your website or affiliate
links... without spending a dime on advertising!
Click Here> http://www.turnwordsintotraffic.com
-=-=-==-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

So last time I showed you my plug in profit site at: -

http://www.EasyInternetEntrepreneur.com

and I showed you the link to get a similar site set up for yourself at: -

http://www.EasyInternetEntrepreneur.Com/pips.html

This is Stone Evans main sales page with my affiliate link in it so people logging in through here will join the scheme under me. This costs them no more and sets up a small bit of reliable income for me. When they do the same for other people they join in under them and so the circle goes on.

Now some people like me might think this sounds like some sort of pyramid scheme scam. So let me reassure you. Look back at my main sales page and you will see links to four main programs.

The first one is Survey Scout at : -

http://www.surveyscout.com/?hop=paulcronin

This is a genuine program where people get paid for their opinions. Everybody has opinions and lots of companies pay good money to find out yours. Survey Scout will pay you an income for filling in the surveys or an income for sending others to fill them in. That is a straight and genuine trade.

The next one is Auction Tips at : -

http://www.auctiontips.com/t.cgi/860675

This is a training course on multiple CDs and Manuals teaching people how to make money from eBay. This course has been used very profitably by thousands of people and so is a very valuable product. They handle the sale. They handle the shipping and they send you the commission on the sale. A great way to start earning without any stock or postage costs to worry about.

The next link is for the Free Dotcomology Book at : -

http://www.pluginprofitsite.com/main-10541/dotcomology.html

This is a great FREE eBook resource designed to get people started on-line. It is good to give away something so useful for free, but it is also a great idea as the eBook is branded with my affiliate links. These links are for loads of useful stuff on the net all of whom will give me a small commission when anyone purchases something through these links. So give away something for FREE and still make money later. A real WIN/WIN.

The next link is Empowerism at : -

http://www.empowerism.com/e/160167/join.cfm

This is an unusual beast as it has shades of multi level marketing in it but also it has plenty of great promotional tools to get your website noticed.

Now you may or may not understand the difference between multi level marketing (MLM), Network Marketing and Pyramid schemes but suffice it to say that true Pyramid schemes are illegal in this country and in the USA. MLM/Network Marketing schemes are perfectly legal. I published a length article on the difference between the two on my blog but in essence the difference is whether there is a genuine product to sell or just the supposed benefit of 'building your down line'. Now this topic is way too complicated to go into here, maybe on a future edition, but Empowerism is a great product and pays a very good commission so the sooner you join then the sooner you can see some genuine return.

The next link is SFI at : -

http://www.moreinfo247.com/9110266/FREE

Now SFI is a Mega Network marketing scheme and it has been running for years in the states with an excellent reputation. It has an enormous variety of products from Vitamin Tablets to Herbal Remedies to Business and Training resources. Their compensation scheme is very complicated but it has a good set of promotional resources so again it is an easy one to get started with.

The next link is to the Internet Warriors Forum at : -

http://www.warriorpro.com/cgi-bin/w.cgi?79664

This is an excellent resource of like minded individuals working in the field of Internet Marketing. This is a great place to learn the ropes and is highly recommended. You will make plenty of friends there. Many members have been in this business for a long time and have immense experience they can offer to help. But don't be too intimidated, there are always plenty of newbies gingerly finding their way around. Do a lot of reading before posting too many obvious questions, but even they do need asking again occasionally.

The next link is to the Internet Marketing Centre at: -

http://dynamic.secretstotheirsuccess.com/t.cgi/860675

This is another excellent training resource and well worth checking out.

Now before this starts to look like one very long sales letter let me simply say that these are just a very good set of examples of affiliate marketing programs. There are many others and a little bit of digging on your own will unearth thousands of good programs you might find interesting and more importantly you might be able to sell to your customers. The above examples are just a few of the best ones with the best commissions schemes for you to make money from. You can of course join them individually or join them all in one go by setting up your own site directly through: -

http://www.EasyInternetEntrepreneur.Com/pips.html

Before I finish let me mention something which will be of interest to anyone going on-line even if you are not too keen on affiliate programs.

You will need web hosting to have even the simplest of sites.

Web hosting varies enormously in price and facilities. Many places will offer free hosting but only with severely restricted facilities.

What if you could get professional full facility hosting for F.R.E.E.?

Well check out Host4Profit at: -

http://www.host4profit.com/cgi-bin/home.cgi?79664

They charge $24.95 a month for hosting which is not bad but not particularly cheap. They are very good and certainly have full service facilities. All you need is a payment account and they can even arrange a domain name for you if you need one, and you will. But what is special about Host4Profit is their affiliate program. They will give you $10 per month for every month that a customer of yours pays for their service. Now that means that if you can just get three people to buy through you then your site is absolutely free! If you get more then these people can produce a regular residual income for you. $10 per month per customer. Refer 50 customers earn $500 per month. You do the maths!

So you do need a hosting service and you can get one that can not only be FREE but it can actually make you money all by itself. That is definitely a WIN/WIN/WIN.

Don't miss out on that one.

Next time I will discuss identifying a market and a product to minimise your set up time and maximise your profits, and other important things, but I had best stop now as this is once again already over long.

Till next time.

Take care and keep learning.

Paul Cronin

The other day I was on the train with a friend of mine on the way to London. We were chatting about several things but at one point he was bemoaning a new business he was helping to set up. He was really cheesed of with all the costs that were leaching out of the business even before it was set up. He had found premises and had had to pay three months rental up front. He had found staff but was currently having to pay there time for the set up arrangements. He had purchased a shed load of stock but as the premises refit had not finished yet he was even having to pay extra warehousing costs to store it till the opening.

All told, and in his words, his bank account was bleeding

"like a stuck pig".

You can tell that he was more than a bit stressed!

So then I think I cheesed him off some more. I said I had recently set up a little web-site pretty much for free. The hosting fees were cheap anyway and the site set up was actually free. I said that I had started a small advertising campaign on Google and the site was starting to get hits and generate sales. I said that I had no premises, no staff and no stock.

"What do you mean No Stock?"

Well I told him that all I did was point the customer in the direction of another website with its own sales page and they did all the hard work in terms of delivery etc and I earned a commission on every sale I generated. This meant that in very short order I had set up a business with as much earning potential as his but with almost no set up costs.

How did I do this?

Affiliate links.

Really this isn't very complicated and very equivalent to a traditional salesman's commission earnings. You scout around the web and find products that you feel might be of interest to your customers. Most of these offer an affiliate service and a commission package, which in some cases can be very significant.

Traditional salesmen may only receive 5% to 6% of the sales price of a product. Affiliate programs of digital products vary widely but in some instances can be as high as 50% or more.

Why would they be willing to give so much away?

Well, especially with digital products the costs per sale can be very small indeed and so the profits can be a very large percentage of the sale price. This means that the largest costs consideration for the main site is the advertising. If you are willing to share that load and send your traffic to their site then they are very happy to make only half of the sale price. Rember with some products the sales price is very high so a 50% cut could be as much as £60 to £100.

This system works so well that some specialist sites have been set up where most of the work has already been done for you. The website designer is willing to give it to you for free as he gets a small percentage of your commission.

As a very good example of this kind of arrangement you can check out the following site: -

http://www.EasyInternetEntrepreneur.Com

This was one of the first sites I set up. It is entirely based around affiliate programs. There are four main affiliate set ups on the front page. Some of them are training courses and programs. Others are MLM and network marketing programs. The set up costs for a site like this are minimal and it even includes a simple email autoresponder program to get you started. Some of the thins like the hosting account and the autoresponder packages are a bit limited in free form but you can get the usual extra benefits by upgrading to the paid for packages. These are still very reasonable and will give your site a very professional feel and increas the chances of you acheiving an income sooner ratherr than later.

You can set up one of these sites for yourself by loging into: -

http://www.EasyInternetEntrepreneur.Com/pips.html

This page will guide you through the fairly simple set up procedure. It will set you up with links for all four affiliate programs and allow you to pick a domain name for your site. Be creative and have fun with the name!

Next time I will discuss other affiliate programs and show you the best and cheapest places to obtain web hosting and other important things, but I had best stop now as this is already over long.

Till next time.

Take care and keep learning.

Paul Cronin

The next article is about affiliate links and affiliate marketing. I have to come up with an special story line first to pique their interest and then describe the ins and outs of affilates.

OK so now it has properly begun.

I now have 20 subscribers to my newsletter and I have to start to think of something to write. I have the advantage of being able to go back to the beginning because most of the subscribers have only just begun the journey which I started a while ago.

I have now directed most of the subscribers to check out this blog to which carries a wonderful circularity to it don't you think....

Just in case you're reading never fear!

A very wise man called John Childers once said that even if you don't think you are an expert, even if you are just starting out, then you are an expert in starting out. Start writing down your experiences as they happen and that is what this blog is all about.

Sometimes the Guru's and the 'Experts' have been so good for so long that they have forgotten the problems they had at the beginning. They explain something but leave out large bits which they assume you already know.

One advantage of the beginner is that he knows he is a beginner. He knows that he needs to learn. He will inevitably make mistakes but he can use those mistakes to help teach others to avoid those mistakes.

There is a very famous apocryphal story about a platoon of soldiers who were doing an exercise where they were required to find their way through a simulated 'mine' field. One by one they were made to find there way from one side to the other and when one of them accidentally touched a 'mine' they were forced to stand still until the others had crossed.

Eventually one or two of the men had managed to find the way through to the other side and the commander brought the rest of the remaining soldiers together and asked them this question.

Would they prefer to cross the mine field with blindfolds on or try to make their way carefully across following the footsteps of the successful soldiers?

Now you and I would think that was a stupid question. However it is truly amazing how many businesses get set up that way. People come up with a 'great idea' try to work out some way to manufacture it, then try to find someone to buy it. It is amazing how many businesses flounder because the owner isn't trying to follow the well trodden path of someone who went before.

However let me take the analogy a stage further. Imagine this simulated mine field was built on sand and the wind was blowing fairly strong. The tracks of the successful soldiers would get filled in pretty quickly so really you would want to follow on behind someone fairly close by. Maybe you could even work with him to find the way through!

That brings up another story about TEN FOOT CHOPSTICKS but I will leave that for another day.

In the mean time positive feedback all round. Remember the secret is multiple income streams.

Should I say that again for emphasis.

multiple income streams...

Whether your streams are several web-sites or several different types of work then they can all help to provide a sustainable income.

Some of my other streams are beginning to come on line now. This helps cushion the blow of the dip in funds when I left the J.O.B.

Oh Yeah and in case you haven't heard it before. Do you know what JOB stands for. Just Over Broke.

Lose the Boss!

Working for yourself may mean you have an idiot for a Boss, but at least he is any idiot that you know very well, and he does really have your best interests at heart.........


TTFN

Paul

There are a lot of firsts on this screen so far, but this is probably the most important.

Yes it has happened after much agony and hand wringing I have actually made a sale.

The order form arrived in the post this morning complete with credit card details.

I put the card details through my streamline machine and quickly wrapped up the DVDs for posting off.

I had made an actual sale.

Now lets get this into perspective. That is not to say that I have made a profit yet. But I have put in an advert, I have sent off a sales letter ,and someone trusted me enough to give me some of their hard earned money.

Now before anyone reading this gets the wrong idea and more importantly just incase the customer stumbles onto this site. He will be very pleased with his purchases. These DVDs are crammed full of the vital details you don't 'just know' you have to be told.

These DVDs cover every conceivable detail from dreaming up a market, checking out a demand and designing and producing the product that they demand.

It is all about added value. No-one is going to make any money selling rubbish. You need to provide what they expect.

In fact you need to provide more than they expect. You need to OVER DELIVER.

So I did. As well as the DVD with Armand Morin on it, as well as the two free bonus DVDs which round off the set I also sent an extra previously unannounced bonus. I sent another DVD which was also a further lecture by Armand from a previous year. In it he discusses and illustrates several different and new ideas about how to identify the market and how to make sure that what you produce will be in demand.

This extra disc is a genuine bonus so that the customer feels that he got more than he asked for and more than he paid for.

For me it was just great to see that envelope arrive in the post.

I know it is just one sale but the first one is always the sweetest.

So have I proved that this works? Well not yet.

I have proved that people do read the Ads. I have proved that someone thought enough of my sales letter to send me the cash and I have started my LIST. I have ten email addresses and snail mail addresses. I now need to start my newsletter and start sending off helpful hints and tips to all my customers and potential customers.

An no, the first thing I wont do is try to sell them something. I need to develop the relationship first.

We shall see.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step

I have made that first step.


Wish me luck.

TTFN

Paul

Ok. Its now live. I have begun my 'make money from home' or 'make money online' business.

My website at www.SupersizeMyWallet.com is now finally finished and running. It would be fair to say that not everything went smoothly. The ad went into the Daily Express on 9/1/6 and the site started to receive hits. I got four phone calls for leaflets. Then I got an email from someone who simply said that all he could see when he logged on was a blue screen.

I logged on to check and everything seemed fine so I ran through a series of further checks. Without going into unnecessary detail I discovered that different Browsers were getting different results.

Safari, Mozilla/Firefox and Netscape were fine but IE6 from a PC simply came up with the said 'Blue Screen.' What the hell???

I checked out the code, I rang the host service. I checked the code again. I couldn't find anything wrong. But 85% of the population use IE6 and they couldn't see anything on my site...........
It took nearly twenty four hours for me to discover the problem. Twenty four hours in which my site received nearly 200 hits, most of which presumably thought the site was broken! Therefore no sales. AAaarrrgghhhh!

I fixed the problem. The site now works fine.

Lesson number one.

Check the site with all available browsers on all available platforms. So despite having a 5 node mac network in the office I had to go and get a cheap Dell PC Laptop to check the site.

Lesson number two.

Check the system. Check the system. Check the system. And then just in case check the system again.

So setting up a home based internet business is not a doddle but with perseverance it can be done. All you need is the specialist information. A significant bit of graft, and undoubtedly a lot of luck too!

On a brighter note. The Express ad generated nearly 200 hits in 3 days. A different campaign on Google adwords generated 180 clicks but it took nearly a month. the costs were roughly similar but I still haven't seen all the clicks from the paper ad.

Lesson number three.

Off-line newspaper ads work.

Try again next week.

TTFN

Paul

Welcome back.

Hope your New Year went great. Mine certainly did. Unfortunately it is now time to take down the decorations and return to work and the real world.

What exactly is the real world and how do you work in it?

More importantly how do you want to work in it.

I am beginning to believe that you get what you expect not necessarily what you want. But what if you expect to get what you want?

If this is all seeming a little too existential perhaps it is an after effect of the New Year Alcohol.

Is it possible to make money on line whilst steering clear of conventional working practices?

Can you do the fabled ideal and spend a couple of hours a day and bring in a workable income?

What is a workable income?

Well I intend to find out. My first products are waiting in the wings. My web-sites have been sufficiently tweaked. I am about to launch out into unknown territories.

I have even arranged my first ad in the business op section of the Express.

Watch this space........

Oh yes I have archived the December articles look down the links on the right. I will try to set up a getting started run down in a chronological order for any newbies interested.

TTFN

Paul