Getting into the mystery of the world wide web can be a hard job and can get harder the more you get into it. The number of sites that populate the web makes it hard for small businesses to utilize this market.

Business owners who devote time to their websites reap the rewards. Sites that are not useful do little for their owners.

One way to exploit your internet venture is through a process known as "search engine optimization," or SEO. This combines HTML design elements, text, and keywords to ensure that the site gets the best possible recognition from the major search engines.

SEO has been in the market for more than 10 years now and today it is on the tongue of all marketing departments worldwide.

To maximize your SEO strategies, you should define your niche market, then decide how you want that niche customers to find you on the Internet. It is hard and is getting harder to distinguish your web site on the Internet market.

Use the following tips to maximize your ROI and market your business online.

Your home page should give the best impression. As with others first impressions mean everything on the Web, so your site's front page must shine in order to be effective. Have a bulleted list of services and a simple, readily accessible way to contact the owner for an estimate or additional information. Subsequent pages can showcase your portfolio, testimonials from satisfied customers, and links to free e-newsletters.

Make it user-friendly. Ease of use equates to both a pleasant visiting experience and marketing effectiveness. Use clear language, useful links, and navigation bars to steer customers in the right direction.

Make them eager to return soon: Attracting visitors is important, but persuading them to return is even more important. Create long-term online customers by incorporating relevant, self-assessment tests, surveys, and other tools with related products and services your business provides. Start with a simple biweekly newsletter, a blog, or a chat forum on a topic of interest to your customers.

Get back to basics: Browse through a few sites and you'll quickly discover that accessing basic information can be a challenge. To make sure your visitors don't get turned off by poor navigation, broken links, and irrelevant information, be sure to give them a clear explanation of your product or service, making sure to highlight exactly what makes your firm and its offerings unique.

Starting a new business can be very fun. For some, this is the best part of the business' life. The uncertainty and optimism of a brand-new business can be intoxicating. For others, just getting to this stage is a challenge. Today, I will present you with ten steps you need to take to get your small business off the ground right. Just because you are starting up an Internet business doesn't mean you should jump in without thinking first.

Let's get right into the steps.

Step One: Set up a business entity—preferably a corporation or LLC. If you are going to run a business, you should set it up as a corporation or LLC to limit your personal liability.

Step Two: Get a business phone number. Yes, I'm aware that you probably have a phone number already, but you should give your new business its own phone number—even if it's just a virtual number tied to your home phone.

Step Three: Set up a business address. If an office or virtual office is too expensive or just not possible, set up an address at your closest mailbox place (not the post office). Your business needs a place—that's not your home—to receive mail and look a little more professional.

Step Four: If you are in the USA, get an EIN number. You can visit the website for the IRS to do this online. Your EIN number is like a SS# for your business. You will use it for tax purposes.

Step Five: It's time to get a bank account. Take your business entity paperwork, EIN number and other information down to the bank of your choice and setup a business checking account. Your bank will be happy to help, and you shouldn't need much money to open one. Some banks allow as little as $100 for the required first deposit.

After completing these five steps, you will have a legitimate business that's ready for the future. In other articles, I'll talk about where to go from here. Look out for my next article "Five More Internet Business Start-Up Tips," which was released with this one.

Many new business owners are tempted to skip these steps—especially those doing business on the Internet. The purpose of these steps goes beyond limiting personal liability and setting up a proper business. It also puts you in the mindset of a real business. If you were going to build a mansion, you wouldn't buy a piece of land that could only fit a mobile home on it would you? Building a successful business is not just about results, it's about the state of mind that helps produce those results.

While there is certainly no doubt who the big dog is at the moment when it comes to the digital music players, there is no dearth of selection for those looking for an alternative. If Microsoft is to achieve their goal of overcoming Apple’s stranglehold on the market and become THE digital music player they will first have to provide a cost-efficient, durable, and versatile music player to those looking for the alternative. One of the alternatives on the market for Microsoft to overcome is that of the Creative Labs Zen Vision player that boasts some of the most impressive stats on the market. Here’s a comparison:

• On the stage of the all-important battery life the Creative Labs Zen Vision will bring you roughly 14 hours on a full charge, basically the same that the Microsoft Zune will bring you. There isn’t much of a difference in this category, but one thing you should know is that the Microsoft Zune does have a lot of opportunities for accessories to lengthen battery life. Seemingly much more than the Creative Labs Zen Vision has to offer at the time.
• The same advantage that Microsoft Zune boasts over the iPod Video is currently what they hold over basically every other video player on the market, a better video screen. With a .5” advantage over most players, the Zune also is the only player with the potential to switch between portrait and landscape mode. This is a great advantage for those with a definite preference for one over the other.
• Where Creative Labs takes a lead over the Microsoft Zune is with the FM tuner. While both the Zune and the Zen Vision have a built in FM tuner for the enjoyment of FM radio during general listening, the Zen Vision has the potential for FM recording to allow you to record your favorite morning show or drive-time team whether you are in the car or not! That is a sensational advantage for any digital music connoisseur.
• Creative Labs Zen Vision is part of the PlaysForSure compatible group that allows you to have the comfort of knowing that your player will work with download sites like Napster and Rhapsody. Microsoft Zune offers the Zune Marketplace, a place specifically for the owners of Zune players, meaning that you are special.
• Microsoft Zune claims that their 30GB player will hold around 7,500 songs or 100 hours of video, while Creative Labs Zen Vision claims around 15,000 songs or 120 hours of video are possible with their player. This could be a way for the Creative Labs folks to try to gain a package advantage or it could have something to do with the dreaded fine print.
• Creative Labs Zen Vision uses a navigation system that is a single strip down the middle that is essentially a touchpad, while Zune sports the circular click pad. Neither has a great amount of complaints, while both seem to have a strong fan base.

I’m guessing if you had a food franchise business offline, you would treat it as if your life depended on it. You would probably even be willing to work 12-16 hours a day to keep your franchise running smoothly!

What you need to realize when starting an internet marketing business is that it is still a real business. Since you already invested up to a million dollars to start up your franchise, it makes perfect sense that you would do whatever it takes to first break even.

And after breaking even you would then wait a few years before you see a positive return on your million dollar investment. Most of you have a realistic mindset when it comes to a ‘real’ million dollar business like that.

But what happens when most of you start a home based internet business? For most of you, the first thing to come to mind is ‘fast money’ and ‘get rich quick’ and ‘effortless cash’. That’s okay, that’s what I thought when I first started in internet marketing.

However, this kind of mindset leads you into thinking that all you need to do throw up a fancy website, watch TV, hang out with friends, and play in your local sports league and you would be rich!

The reality is, to make decent money over the internet it takes time and effort, just like a real business. The only difference is that you are running a business over the internet and it also requires time and commitment.

You already know that an advantage of an internet marketing business is that it has virtually no overhead compared to a traditional franchise. BUT because it’s so cheap to start up, that is also internet marketing’s disadvantage.

Naturally, you and I tend to treat an internet marketing business more like a hobby than a real cash flow generating business because it’s easy to get in and easy to get out. Your life would not dramatically change if you started and did nothing with it and failed.

But in a traditional fast food franchise, you would starve if you had that kind of mindset. But because you put down everything you possess (home, life savings, etc) into your franchise; your focus, determination, and sacrifice to perform and treat it seriously is an absolute must.

You understand that about a franchise, so let me ask you what would happen if you treated your franchise like a hobby? What if you treated your fast food franchise like you treated your internet marketing ‘hobby’?

If you have a J-O-B, what will happen if you didn’t feel like showing up to work for a week because your friends were coming to visit?

What if you decided to close your franchise a little early because you must watch that new episode of “Sex In The City”? With that kind of attitude and lack of discipline, you would get fired and your franchise will close down.

Before starting an internet business, or if you haven’t given your internet business the attention it deserves, ingrain in your mind right now that you need to treat your internet marketing business as seriously as your job or business.

Like your job and business, expect to put in the time and effort into building your foundation with internet marketing. Only then will you be able to see the rewards and freedom lifestyle that your internet business can give you.

So you have a business idea that you believe will solve pressing issues for your business clients. Maybe it will even end world hunger and rid the world of AIDS? Congratulations are in order! Now what?

How can you find out if the idea you dreamed up will make it in the real world? You can follow the conventional route of hiring consultants to do market research if you have enough money to bankroll a project and are confident the risk is worth the possible payoff. But are there other options? Thankfully, the path to exploratory market research has been shortened by the advent of pay-per-click advertising tools like Yahoo! Search Marketing and Google Adwords.

You can get started with exploratory market research online in 5 easy steps!

1. Digest your business idea and the benefits it will offer your target market for a few days. Do conventional research in your area of specialty by reading industry periodicals and blogs from industry leaders. Then write a short article or white paper that offers some key tidbits of information about the benefits of your new business idea or product without compromising any of your intellectual property.

2. Use keyword research tools like Google Adwords Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) and Yahoo's Keyword Selector Tool (http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/rc/srch/) along with search engines like Google and Ask. The latter has a useful "Narrow Your Search" prompt in the right hand sidebar that will speed up your task considerably. If you want to get serious, subscribe to Wordtracker and do some research based on the past behavior of search engine users - this is an effective way to find key phrases that will work.

3. Learn the editorial rules for Yahoo! Search Marketing (http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/rc/srch/htgla_con.php) and Google Adwords (https://adwords.google.com/select/guidelines.html) and write your first Ads using the keywords you discovered during step 2. These ads should accurately reflect the content your article or white paper will provide.

4. Either learn enough HTML to create a basic HTML landing page with your selling points picking up the thread from your pay-per-click ads, or hire a designer to set up a simple landing page for you.

The landing page should require a minimum of customer information, such as name and email address. Remember, you can start a dialog and learn more from your site visitors once they decide to trust you with their email address. Include a brief privacy policy that states your intention to protect the security of your site visitors' information.

When submitted, the form should send you an email notifying you of the name and email address of the site visitor who wants to read your valuable article or white paper. If the site takes off, you'll want to automate this step, but this simple form will be enough to get you started.

5. Set up accounts and campaigns with Yahoo! Search Marketing and Google Adwords keeping your cost-per-click as low as possible. If your keyword research was effective, you should be able to get traffic for a free product like your article for between .15 and .25/click. Once you have traffic coming to your site, you will want to learn about conversion rates - (the number of visitors who sign up for your article)/(the number of total visitors to your site or page) - and tweak your landing page to improve your conversion rate as much as possible.

As the President of the Association of Web Entrepreneurs, I help entrepreneurs create systems and automate their online businesses so they can make more money and enjoy more freedom in their lives. Here are 4 things you must do to build a strong foundation as you grow your online company. Skip one of these and you simply won't be able to create a long-term sustainable online business.

1. You Must Find Your Ideal Target Market

When someone visits your website or reads your marketing materials, one of the very first things they think is: "Is this service or product for me?" They want to know if your business or your services are designed for people like them and they want to know if you understand them, if you’ve worked with people like them before, and if you appreciate their situation and problems. This is huge!

To define your ideal target market, here are some questions that you can ask yourself--it's kind of a fun way to do it and what I find is that a lot of business owners in the start-up phase don't think about who they love being around. They think about who they're going to sell to, who is going to want this, instead of thinking more about who they would actually serve well.

So here are some questions to ask yourself about your potential target market:

* What type of people do you love being around?
* What do they like to do?
* What do they talk about?
* Who do these types of people associate with?
* Are they smiling, are they outgoing, are they creative?

2. You Must Create a Community

You have to create a reason for your ideal clients to visit your website and purchase your products and services over and over again. That reason is a community. Solid businesses are built on relationships. Creating a community in your business (through blogs, forums, e-zine interviews and Q & A, physical events, and so on) allows you to build long-term relationships with your customers and it helps them to get to know you. This is especially important on the Internet.

Online communities also encourage your customers to get to know each other. Many times they will form beneficial partnerships and support each other too. A community gives your customers a place to communicate with one another and to refer others to. And membership-based communities can generate substantial revenues for your business as well. Membership-based communities will also encourage customers to plug back in to your business year after year as long as you are still focusing on their needs/problems.

3. You Must Create a Database

You must have a mechanism in place to store all your potential customers' contact information. Intimidated by the thought of creating a database? Please don’t be, just go to your nearest office supply store and you can purchase a database program for less than $50. Some website providers even have this function built straight into their website.

Keeping track of your customers' basic information is crucial to the success of your long and short-term sales. At the very least, you must capture (enter) their name, address, and e-mail. You will use this database to quickly and efficiently communicate with your customers through future e-mailings and direct mailings. Add customers to your database by networking (and speaking!) at conferences by simply saying… "I have this free (report, booklet, etc.--something you created that is what every conference attendee would want to read) and I would love to send it to you with my free weekly newsletter." Just grab their card and put a little check by their e-mail address so that you know you got their permission.

Another faster and easier way to build your database is by doing it online. Have a sign-up box on every page of your website for new potential customers. And there are many online services now too that allow you to build a community and build your database at the same time, such as www.memberclicks.com. It doesn’t matter how you build your database, just do it!

4. You Must Have a Call to Action

Busy people need a reason to act now. Whatever your form of communication is with your customer (e-mail, postcards, brochures, website, etc.), it must have a call to action somewhere in it if you want them to stop what they are doing and make purchasing your product or service a priority. Include wording that says 'act now' implying that if they don't they will miss an important opportunity. And even better is to not imply but be straightforward and tell them exactly what they will miss. The best calls to action include date expirations, liquidation sales, early-bird sales, etc. You can also appeal to them with seasonal calls to action. Taking advantage of New Year's resolutions is one example. Using a call to action is a simple technique, but a very powerful one!

Internet business is a growing trend now, many companies are diversifying their offline business, creating a new channel through the Internet. You may think why? There are many factors such as bigger market, lower cost and effectiveness.

Let me share with you a story:

I have always wanted to set up my own online store but I dumped my plan and venture into affiliate programs. You ask why? My reasons are simple and straight forward, I don’t have the capital. Well, I did say that the cost for going into online business is lower as compare to offline business but consider that you need to create your own product, build and maintain your own e-commerce store, logistics, payment, sales copy, paper work etc. It’s going to cost you some money and time to get everything up and running.

I took all these factors into consideration and decided that affiliate programs was the best online business for me to start with.

What is an affiliate program?

Affiliate program is like a joint venture with a partner which is also known as the affiliate company. Most of the times the affiliate company will provide you with all the tools you need to promote their product. All you need to do is to drive traffic to your website. You will get to keep as much as 50% of the sales made and great thing about it is you can instantly start earning money once you join an affiliate company.

Why affiliate programs?

It’s virtually hassle free! All you need to do is to market the product. Most affiliate company will have everything up and ready for you to start. Their products are ready to be marketed, website setup for you, sales copy written for you, payment procedure done for you and even the customer service will be handle by your affiliate company. The only thing that you need to do is to market their product online.

If you are looking to venture online but do not know where to start, affiliate program might be the best way that you can start with. I started my online business with affiliate program and all I have to do is to concentrate on drive traffic to my website and leave the rest to the affiliate company.

Nowadays there are more and more schemes out there, especially on the internet that promises people the chance to make a lot of money and within a short period of time. Let me tell you this, online paid surveys cannot be classified as one of these schemes. In fact if you think you are going to make a lot of money undertaking online paid surveys, then think again.

What Do They Involve?

Online paid surveys are everywhere on the internet as most companies are looking to pay consumers money to tell them exactly what they want. This enables these companies to save millions of dollars that could be lost if they released the wrong product of service to the public. Therefore if there are so many companies doing these online paid surveys, it means you have a greater opportunity of taking part in more of them and of course making more money for yourself and the best thing is, they're easy!

Most surveys take anywhere from 10-30 minutes and involve simple questions that are usually multiple choice, therefore when answering each question all you have to do is check the response that is most relevant to you and your situation. How easy is that!

You're probably thinking "so can I just mark in any response without reading the question to speed up the process?" The answer is yes, with shades of grey. If you show signs of marking a faulty survey, that company may prevent you from taking part in more online paid surveys in the future. So my advice is to be honest and read the question, it doesn't take very long and it may mean the difference between you getting more surveys in the future or not.

How can I get Started?

Getting started is easy, there are thousands of online paid survey sites on the internet so the simplest thing you can do is run a search on any search engine for online paid surveys and bookmark all the best sites. This however can take a lot of time, so your best chance is to sign up with a membership with an online paid survey directory. These sites have a listing of all the best online paid survey providers on the internet so all the research is done for you. They also give you a description of what each site is all about and how much they pay, as well as many other things. Remember, getting the most surveys, means you have to get in before anyone else does so make sure you give yourself the best opportunity.

You see the pitches all the time...

"The Greatest Business Opportunity Ever..."

"37 Level Matrix Easy Qualifying"

"We Do It All For You...You Don't Even Have to Get Off Your Butt to Go to the Bank."

"Just Give Me Your Credit Card and I'll Take Care of Everything."

"Make $100,000 or More Without Lifting a Finger"

I could go on and on with more of them, but I'm tired of thinking about them already.

You see these types of pitches all the time. They tell you that you don't have to do any work whatsoever. They tell you that you don't have to do anything.

They even tell you that you don't have to think!

Let me tell you the rule of earning a profit online...

"You Have to Use Your Brain."

The greatest business opportunity you'll ever be offered is sitting inside your head...it's your own brain and your own thoughts.

A lot of people don't want to have to use their brains. Thinking is the hardest work you'll ever do. It wears you out. Spend a day thinking and planning and you'll be more worn out than if you did physical labor all day in many cases.

Most people simply don't have the self-confidence to think for themselves. Yet, it is one of the primary requirements of success online.

If you don't do your own thinking...you won't make money online.

Don't get me wrong. You should buy and learn from training products. You should educate yourself from those who have succeeded before you.

In fact, I spend $10,000+ per year on Internet marketing training information (and I already do pretty well).

But when the rubber meets the road, it's up to me to succeed for myself and my family. You have to remember that.

I've had people who have bought a training tape set from me before who've emailed me later on. They asked, "Hey, I haven't made any money yet. Do you know what the problem is?"

I ask them a few questions such as:

"Can I see your web site?"

"Where have you advertised?"

"Have you written any autoresponder messages?"

The answer to all three questions came back as a "No." They told me that they just bought the product, signed up for my affiliate program, and were waiting for me to send them a check.

They hadn't even LISTENED to the product yet.

And this is not an uncommon occurrence. I hear from people all the time at seminars that they have spent as much as $20,000 on a "business opportunity" online and they're just hoping something might happen with it soon.

Let me settle this once and for all. There is not any magical money machine waiting for you out there. There is nothing out there that just has buttons on it that you push and money comes out (and if there was, it would be called a counterfeiting operation).

To succeed online requires hard work. Oh my, I used a 4 letter word, "Work." Sure, you may be able to automate your business and get it to earn it's income while you sit back and relax AFTERWARDS.

To get it to the point where it is an automated income streams requires a lot of work first.

And not only does it require WORK, but it also requires thinking. And that's the part people most dislike in my experience.

You have to think about what you're going to sell.

You have to think and research what people want to buy.

You have to think about where you're going to advertise.

You have to think about what to say in your ad.

You have to think about the article you're going to write.

YES. There are tools to help you with all the above, but nothing has ever or will ever be invented that takes out all of the thinking process.

If you buy a product on "ebook creation," then you can expect to have to WRITE an ebook. If you sign-up to promote an affiliate program, then you can expect to have to figure out ways to generate low cost traffic (just placing ads is a losing game when promoting other people's affiliate programs).

If you buy a license to someone else's product, then you can expect to have to figure out how to advertise AND build an opt-in email list (so you can earn multiple streams of income from your subscribers).

So, face it. If you want to succeed online, then expect upfront that you're going to have to work and think for yourself. Get tools to help. Buy items to train you. Learn from those who have already done it.

The best products that will do the most for you are those that actually teach you how to think for yourself.

When it is all said and done, success is your responsibility. And don't let anyone tell you differently.

We are all becoming victims of information overload.

The Internet has created a vast source of information available to everyone on any subject. The problem is not where to get information, but what information should you use.

There is also the problem of how to break down the information into usable size pieces, and where to start?

We are offered "must buy " information every day.

When first learning how to run an internet business, we would suggest looking for a "Turnkey" system. Something that gives you the entire breakdown on setting up a profitable business.

You then can research specialized reports,eg. "On how to get tons of traffic to your site"

Fortunately there are many genuine successful internet marketers who are willing to share their experiences and who offer courses for people with different levels of knowledge.

These courses will shorten your learning curve dramatically.

But what course do you buy?

Here are 5 points to consider before buying an online course.

1. Check the credentials and reputation of the person offering the course. He or she must walk the talk. A good way to start the process is to Google their name. A genuine expert will have many hits on their name. You may like to read their testimonials and then go to their website to check that they are genuine.

2. Do they offer support to their members with regular updates? The internet is changing rapidly and you do not want to spend money on something that will be out of date quickly. The best products are offered with tips to help you and relevant information available in their members section on an ongoing basis.

3. Is the course a stand alone product and does it answer your needs? You do not want to be in a position where you have to buy further products before it is of any use to you. Do not let the number of bonuses be the reason for buying a particular product. It is easy to be swayed by bonus products that you will never use.

4. An added benefit would be if there is an option to be an affiliate partner. If you have used the product and were delighted with it you would be able to give an honest testimonial when advertising it. This would create an extra income stream for you and could be a way to pay for the course.

5. Do they offer detailed content of the course and not just a sales page giving exaggerated promises? Sometimes you are offered a free report or ebook,it is worth checking these to see if there is any serious content in them. Before buying a course it is also a good idea to check that there is a full money back guarantee with no strings attached. This way you can return the product if you are not entirely happy with it and you know they are confident that they are offering you a good quality product.

After buying a course that follows these guidelines, we would suggest that you commit to the course and stop looking for "better and easier" ways to make money. The next most important step is to take action on their ideas.

Unfortunately this is one of the major reasons why most businesses never turn a profit. Too much time is spent researching and looking for the best advice, and not enough action is taken.

We hope this helps you find your way around the internet and that you have every success in your new business.