I was fortunate to hear someone say this so true fact - "The wonderful thing about the internet is that there is a lot of information". And "The bad thing about the internet is that there is a lot of information". You are basically trying to learn how to feel and find your way thru a JUNGLE! This is just the the plain truth and because it is a jungle, people are swinging from vine to vine trying to become the next TARZAN and become King of it as far as Network Marketing is concerned. Some will succeed but the majority wont. That's why over time I realized after spending tons of money trying to promote and build programs I got fed up and stopped doing it to find out what I was doing wrong before I went insane!

I finally realized that nothing changes if nothing changes!

I hunted, searched and prayed to find someone who was doing things correctly that I could copy. And even though it took me a little time I was able to accomplish that. I found Joel Broughton and Paul Birdsall who are both millionaires from this industry and I am taking their training and I am finally experiencing success that I have never ever had before in Network Marketing. What they teach works if you implement it! I started their course about 100 days ago from the date of this current post to my blog that you are reading right now and I can't believe what's happening in my life. And what is crazy is that they train you free of charge because they want to give back which is why their system is called PayitForward4Profits!

If you are looking into trying to build a residual income in a current home based business that you have right now via the internet, the PayitForward4Profits System is something you must look into. It just makes sense. You will save time, money and years of trying to build your life dreams of true residual income because of the education that you will receive from the system. We don't know what we don't know. But when we learn what we need to know, life will be a lot easier to tackle especially in something as important as trying to successfully build a Primary/Home Based Business while using a powerful tool such as the internet.

If you’ve been looking for information on paid surveys for awhile now, you have probably come across some sites that pay in cash, and some that pay with other incentives such as gift vouchers or points.

But is it worth taking surveys that pay you in anything other than cash? It depends on what your goals are. If you only want to make money, rather than savings on products, or enter prize draws, then you may want to stay away from sites that don’t pay in cash.

Some sites, however, pay you with things like Amazon gift vouchers. Now to some people this is as good as cash. Why? Because if you were going to spend your money on CDs, books, DVDs, or anything else they sell at Amazon, then it’s just as good as money. Also, you can usually get gift vouchers of a higher value than you would if you were paid in cash.

But some sites pay you will “free entry” into prize draws. Are these worth it? Many people would agree that these sites aren’t worth your time. Personally, I have rarely ever filled in a survey for just a prize draw. But it’s important to realize that these prizes draws ARE legitimate (as long as you’re dealing with a reputable company, anyway). The best way is to look at it as free lottery ticket. You may get no reward, or you may get a very good reward, but you don’t have to pay with anything other than the time it takes for you to fill out the survey.

Some paid survey sites reward you with points. You can usually cash in these points when you hit a certain level. You can then exchange them for things like gift vouchers, entry into prize draws with huge prizes, or even money. Most of the time, the best deal is to use your points to claim gift vouchers for somewhere that you spend you money anyway (such as Amazon).

I hope I’ve been able to give you a good overview of the different paid survey incentives out there. While it’s always nice to get paid in cash, sometimes you can get many more surveys that reward you in different ways. For most people who are doing this for a little extra to spend each month, it’s worthwhile doing the surveys that allow you to save your money by using gift vouchers to buy things rather than cash.

Internet Business and Businesses Online – How I Use Article Marketing To Build My Business

I will tell you upfront that I operate a niche web site in the internet marketing arena. Because I use a niched approach, I believe my tactics would work well in just about any niche market where there is some widespread interest.

I think it is personally interesting that so many people think that the internet marketing niches are burnt out, that there are too many people in them. I have seen some things in the last few months that lead me to believe that is not that case.

So how do I use article marketing to build my online business?

1) I write articles that are geared to buyers of my web site niche. You see, I couldn’t care less how many visitors I get. I just want buyers. So I try to write to buyers, not lookers or just surfers. I want to give quality information in my articles that will lead people to want more from me. That way when the click through to my website, they are already qualified buyers.

2) I currently only use one article directory for all my article submissions. I have done extensive testing and have found that like 95% of all my traffic came from that one site, when I used to post to around 100 different article directories. Another note on that: testing is critical to everything you do. If you are not testing, you are missing out on profit opportunities, for sure. You just have to test.

3) I write my articles aggressively. The only reason I write is to get people to click through and be prequalified to like me when they get there. That’s it. Forget about trying to please everyone – I don’t care who closes this article without clicking, I only care that the ones that click through genuinely like me and want more information.

By the way, just a note on the internet marketing niches – when you specialize, you eliminate the tire kickers. Let me explain – if you are marketing to the general public about starting an internet business, you get everyone who is just getting started and only like 5% of them ever make any money. And if they are not making money online, most of them are not going to continue to spend it. Sure, they will buy the first course or two, but I am looking for the long-term customer. The person who gets on one of my specialized niche lists, they probably already have an online business and are actively spending money to promote their business. I am going after a piece of that pie, rather than trying to create new believers in internet marketing.

You see them on the internet everywhere. They try to flood your mailbox with advertisements. Their banners are flashing everywhere you look. They are the source of all those text ads you see. They are the people who make money from the internet; the people that run their own online home business. One can only wonder what goes through the heads of these characters.

These people are often haunted by the memories of working in the corporate world. In their past they probably struggled to provide a living for themselves and their families. They worked long, hard hours, trying to make ends meet. Then finally at one point they had no choice but to turn to the internet to find a way to make a living. Maybe they lost their job. Maybe there was a nasty family problem. Or perhaps their job was not enough to pull them out of debt. In any case, the important thing is that they were forced to venture into the world of online business.

Once one braves the journey of owning an online business, there is often no turning back. It is simply not economical to go into online business with minimal start-up capital and less than maximum effort. The successful people begin their journey with this mind set. They have no choice but to make their online home business succeed. Driven by the imperative to make money and provide food for their families, they work and research endlessly.

Some aspiring online entrepreneurs will inevitably falter and their business will be doomed to failure. No matter how intelligent those people are, they did something wrong. Maybe their mind was negative and clouded with thoughts of failure, which would almost certainly lead to failure. It is a possibility that they simply did not even know what they were doing. Perhaps they were doing things beneficial for their business, but not on a consistent basis. Often times they were simply too impatient and bailed before the seeds of their business could even sprout.

Online entrepreneurs can occasionally be loners. They rarely get any support from friends, family, or anyone else close to them. They may be even ridiculed and laughed at for attempting to make money online. The people unsupportive to the online entrepreneur usually try to convince him or her that all those opportunities, books and websites that advertise ways to make money online are scams. This can only serve to motivate the person even more to work hard to become successful, so that the negative people can be proven wrong.

The mind of an online entrepreneur is truly an enigma. It is a mystery of where they come from, but it is even more mysterious to wonder where they are going. Some are aiming for early retirement. Others want a nice long vacation that they can only dream of. Maybe some just want some more spending money to complement their income. Whatever their goal may be, the truly successful ones will laugh in the face of danger and hunger for adventure.

Like many things on this earth, having a website sounds great on paper, but what you don't consider are some of the most important aspects of having the site. These are my top ten in no particular order.

1) Having a website means absolutely nothing without traffic. That is without visitors. Without visitors a website is like a piece of paper you jotted a note on and forgot about. What's that piece of paper worth to you?

2) Getting traffic is not an easy thing to do. Don't let anyone tell you that it's easy or quick to get traffic. Unless you're willing to spend a lot of money, getting traffic quickly is not going to happen.

3) Once you start to get a little traffic, expect to get inundated with unwanted emails like you were some porn addict putting your email address into any box that pops up on the screen in the hopes of getting a quick 'peek'.

4) If you pay someone else to do your site, and you need changes it's going to cost you a lot of money. (And by the way, you will want to make changes).

5) Making money on the internet is not easy! It can be simple, but not easy. I've seen a lot of crap out there that makes it seem as if making money on the internet is as easy as brushing your teeth, but this is not the case.

6) To have a decent site, it's going to get changed more than a teenager with a two hundred and fifty dollar gift certificate to the Gap, especially in the beginning.

7) Everyone says that you MUST have a newsletter. But without significant traffic, it doesn't matter, because no one will sign up for it any way. You can of course buy a list of names to email your precious newsletter to, but this will cost you a decent amount of money, just like everything else.

8) Search engine Optimization is not everything everyone makes it out to be. Many times it's made out to be the be all and end all. But you must pay attention to where all the hype is coming from. Normally it's coming from someone trying to sell you SEO services. Just paying someone fifty bucks a month for these services is not going to bring you five hundred dollars worth of business a month.

9) Very few people mention article writing as a means of promoting your website, but it's a good one. And in most cases it's free. That's probably why it's not mentioned a lot, because some dorky tech guy's not going to make a buck off of it. But, no matter what you hear, article writing is a good thing.

10) Just keep at it and trust your instincts. There are many people on the internet trying to squeeze money out of you, especially if it's a subject that your unfamiliar with nso just trust your instincts. They will rarely steer you in the wrong direction.

Those are my top ten things that no one told me about having a website. Hopefully they can help you save some time, money, and heartache.

What bank do you use? Are you still waiting at the bank every payday to deposit your check and get some money for the weekend? There is a better way to bank where you do not have to waste time each week at the bank waiting in line. One simple way to cut down on your time spent at the bank is to have your paycheck direct deposited into your account each payday. This will save you the time and energy that it takes to go to the bank and it is all electronic. If you already have direct deposit, then you know how simple and easy it is. Now you are ready to turn to your computer for the rest of your banking.

Nationwide Internet Banking is a great invention and most people who have tried it fall in love with the simplicity and ease of use. Do you use Nationwide Internet Banking? If not, you will want to get online and see what this kind of banking can offer you. By choosing to use Nationwide Internet Banking you will no longer have to visit the bank to pay your bills or to deposit your paychecks. That sounds great, doesn't it? Going to the bank is not a fun adventure and by changing to a Nationwide Internet Bank you will find that you will save yourself time and energy.

I tried Nationwide Internet Banking and I have been using it ever since. There were hundreds of banking issues that I had to deal with constantly and I got very tired of it. By chance, I saw Nationwide Internet Banking while surfing on the web. Then I found the official website of the Nationwide Internet Banking and found that it would solve alot of my problems, even the lines at the local bank.

If you are tired of having to visit the bank, then you may want to try Nationwide Internet Banking. You may think that it looks difficult, but in no time you will find that it is fast and easy to use. Go check out their website now. If you are ready to take back that wasted time that you spend in the bank, then Nationwide Internet Banking is the thing that you want.

Did you ever wonder how you can build an empire online? If you think that starting a business online is difficult, it may be because you are thinking bout offline business…

Today, it is possible to build an empire online with the fast growing market of audio. As you already know, MP3 and Ipods are everybody’s favourites in our busy world.

People realize that they can learn and discover new things while working, or on the road, in the train… at the beach! Why should you waste those valuable minutes or hours doing nothing, or sitting at home, reading your preferred book?

Here is a little secret that will enable you to build your empire online fastest than you can ever think: downloadable audio ebooks. It is the fastest growing multi-billion dollar businesses on the Internet.

Better, MP3 is a very hot market, and it will continue to grow for years to come. The good thing is that downloadable audio ebooks will grow with MP3 and ipods.

If you carry out a little research with Google, you may think that this market is over saturated since you see million of results for this term… Do not let this stop you. It is still possible to have an extremely lucrative business and even build your empire.

You may not be aware about Mc Donald’s business model, it is a system of franchises. Why am I talking about Mc Donald’s here? Simple. Paul Smithson is a highly successful entrepreneur, and he had the idea of creating a turnkey business based on Mac Donald's business model.

You need to become the partner of a chain of franchises, and be able to recruit affiliate under you. The motherhouse must be an already established website with top-notch audio ebooks.

The key for you to build your empire is to become a partner, like Amazon partners because it will be too difficult to compete directly with the big companies. For your website to be able to compete, you should be able to build truly unique webpages fast, and focus on ultra targeted campaigns.

You have now the keys to build an empire on the Internet if you follow the steps outlined in this article. It is something that happens only once in a lifetime, and you should have a look at this before others.

I was emailed an offer yesterday that really got me thinking about perceived value versus actual value.

Often, we can be led to believe that something is an incredible “buy it now” value, when in reality the offer is only worth pennies.

We’ve all heard the saying “she could sell ice to an Eskimo”. Let’s face it, ice to an Eskimo does not have real actual value, but a good salesperson may be able to sell the perceived value.

Another example is the toys found in cereal boxes. When I was a child, an entire marketing campaign from the cereal company was focused on the toy inside the cereal box. Thousands of boxes of cereal were sold for the tiny toy found inside. This is perceived value. As we know, the actual value of the item inside the box was pennies. The toy was lost or broken within minutes. It was all perceived value.

I am seeing this same strategy being used online. Sellers are creating incredible perceived value for items that do not hold much actual value in dollars and cents. An example; an ebook is being sold on how to make money on the internet. I’ve seen these books offered for anywhere from $9.99 to $99.99. In fact, the web site and all ads will often cross out one price and in red insert a lower price. This is perceived value, creating the perception that something is worth more than it might actually be worth. Let’s look at the actual value of this particular book.

I learn that this $9.99 book comes with an affiliate option. If I, as an affiliate, sell one of these books, I can earn 50% of the commission. The sales pitch is all about the money I can earn, and how easy it will be to sell the item. But wait, we’ve lost actual value in the book. Remember, the book used to be worth $10. Now with 50% being given away, the actual worth of the book has dropped to only $5.

With so many books on the market, and so much free information available, I’m not sure I could recommend spending $10 for an item whose actual value has dropped in half as soon as the affiliate factor was brought in.

There is one other value that I’ve not yet spoken about and that is the value to you personally. Perhaps your child picked up all of his toys, so buying the box of cereal is worth the few dollars it will cost to get the toy. Or perhaps you really like the author of the ebook and you’ve read his/her books before and you know that what you’ll learn is worth the $10 you’ll pay. There is value in these purchases to you personally. By all means, make the purchase if there is real value to you; however be aware of perceived value and actual value in dollars and cents.

The Business of Being a Writer

If you have begun your Internet path to a writing career, I don't have to tell you that writers are exploring a different world than Ernest Hemingway or Robert Frost conquered. These days, the internet plays a significant and powerful role in our success or failure to capture jobs. Millions of people are online each day going through various job boards with the voraciousness of a keyboarding athlete.

How Do I Survive in this Kind of Environment?

Make no mistake, if you are freelancing as a writer there are a multitude of job boards, blogging opportunities and scams as well as telecommuting opportunities. Writers in particular are not bound to geographic locations any longer, as long as you have a computer and an internet connection, then you are in business.

How do you survive when there are so many others vying for the same jobs? It's not easy, believe me. The best thing you can do is to peruse reputable boards and when a position or writing assignment presents itself, JUMP on it. Time is of the essence and putting your best foot forward is essential. Make sure your website is professional looking, try putting writing samples online so that potential employers can view your work without having to download documents. Viruses are too easy to pass on and most won't take the chance.

Another important point: Don't forget to pursue local businesses for work. The economy has been rough on most employers and the need for outsourcing "non-revenue producing" work, i.e. admin or HR work has become the norm.

Regularly submit your site to search engines and post your services wherever you can, especially if it is free. Who can refuse that?

The vast majority of our economy is transported through the mail. Online purchases are shipped through the mail. Gas, electric and water bills travel through the mail every month to the average persons home. (Unfortunately) Of course, the payments for these bills are returned through the mail as well. Considering how many millions of pieces of mail are shipped everyday, it is surprising that the number of people who have decided to take advantage of the new innovations of online postage. Perhaps it is because many people are not entirely familiar with what online postage exactly is.

Online postage allows a person to print shipping labels and a variety of postage stamps from a personal computer. Of course, the online postage printing account has to be cleared with the United States postal service or from a licensed legitimate venders who have been authorized by the postage service to distribute such software.

Some may ask why it is important to have such a postal solution item and there are several reasons. First, it saves a great deal of time as it eliminates trips to the post office. Second, it speeds up the process required for mailing bulk mail and packages. Thirdly, it saves money as it eliminates the costs involved with having to transport bulk mail to the post office. These are all huge benefits that any person or business could benefit by. So why is it that people seem to resist making the switch from traditional attitudes of sending mail rather than take advantage of the modern advancements that the postal service is offering?

Part of the reason is due to human nature. When people get used to a certain way to do things or fall into a certain pattern or prescribe to a certain conventional wisdom, they have a very hard time switching gears and changing their patterns. This occurs even when there is an innovation that could save them a great deal of time and money. People will find a certain physical and mental comfort zone and stay within that comfort zone, greatly resisting change even when those changes benefit them. (It is humorous to note that when there are changes in entertainment systems or mediums, people will jump to purchase a new product)

To put off exploring the benefits of an online purchase system is not a wise move for both a business and an individual person. If the innovation is there, then the innovation should be explored to the fullest and all the benefits that come with the innovation should be expanded. The only thing keeping you from exploring such an option is you yourself so do not delay and give serious consideration to online postage systems today.

Running an Internet broadcast station requires a financial commitment regardless of its size. There are monthly expenditures for station operation that include : Internet access, media server bandwidth, studio equipment, computer hardware, and facilities costs.

The amount of money required to run an Internet broadcast station is dependent on the size of the broadcast operation. Some of these finances can be generated from audience donations, or program subscriptions, however this approach normally does not cover all incurred expenses.

Internet based advertising content can provide a reliable source for operating income. Broadcasters can place advertising on the station website, or within the broadcast itself. ( This advertising content can be in audio or video format. )

Internet based advertising has matured into a very profitable and respectable business sector. The advertising content can be broad or narrow based. Broad based advertising is well suited for high traffic, large audience broadcast stations. Niche advertising markets have also proven to be very profitable. Niche advertising combined with niche media content has been been able to out perform broad based, high traffic advertising in some instances.

There are several things to consider prior to committing a broadcast station to a particular method of advertising.

These include :

Which media format the station will be offering - audio or video content ?
( Advertising can be tailored to fit specific media formats. )

What is the target audience of the Internet broadcast station ?
( These demographics are based on the media content that the station broadcasts in addition to analyzing the stations web site traffic. )

Which method of advertising is best suited for the Internet broadcast station's financial goals ?
( Will this be the primary or secondary source of income for station operation? )

Broadcasters should thoroughly research and test various advertising methods before finalizing their choice for a advertising format. A time frame of sixty to ninety days should be allowed for testing different advertising formats. It is very important to document these results, as this will allow the broadcast station to choose the best suited advertising format.

A well planned and executed advertising program can provide both valuable experience and operating income to an Internet broadcast station.

Advertising content for the actual Internet broadcast

Auction advertising
Advertising can be sold through direct Internet auctions. There are several online businesses that offer online auctions.

These include ebay.com and yahoo.com

Internet audio advertising broker
There are several advertising agencies that negotiate and sell audio advertising on affiliate Internet radio stations.

These include netradiosales.com and internetradiomarketing.com.

Internet video advertising broker
There are several advertising agencies that negotiate and sell video advertising on affiliate Internet video stations.

These include brightroll.com, vitalstream.com, instream.com and dynadco.com.

Advertising content for the station website

Video clip
( Currently Beta Testing )
Monetary compensation is based on people watching web based video clips that contain advertising.

Click to call or text
( Currently Beta Testing )
Monetary compensation is based on people contacting various business partners using Google talk or Skype. The click to call or text message links are placed on web pages.

Contextual Advertising
Banner, image, text or video advertising that is placed on websites. The website content determines which advertising is presented.

These businesses provide webmaster with contextual advertising solutions:

Adsense advertising program
Yahoo advertising program
MSN advertising program

Banner Advertising Programs

Pay Per Click ( PPC )
Monetary compensation is based on people clicking banner advertisements. Banner agencies negotiate the payment per click rate with advertisers.
( Large variety of advertising sources to choose from. )

Cost Per Thousand ( CPM )
( This method of banner advertising is best suited for high volume traffic websites. )
Monetary compensation is based on sales of advertising units per web page. Banner advertising is sold in units of 1000 impressions.

Affiliate program
Monetary compensation is generated by providing referral sales.
( Most web hosting companies provide some form of sales program incentive. )

Website co-branding
Monetary compensation is generated by placing branded graphics or text on websites.

You may not realize this, but the absence of a merchant account can seriously hurt your business. To understand why merchant accounts play such an important role in the achievement of online success, you have to understand what a merchant account is and what it offers.

First, let's talk about what a merchant account is. A merchant account is a "bank account" that provides you with the ability to accept credit cards from your customers. When you have a merchant account, your customer pays you with a credit card, the credit card information is then processed and the funds from successful credit card transactions are deposited into your merchant account. Once the funds from a credit card transaction are in your merchant account, you can transfer them from the merchant account into your checking account.

In today's technology-driven world, fewer and fewer people are paying with cash and the ability to pay with a credit card isn't just preferred by online customers, it's outright expected.As we all know, if you can't offer a customer what they want, they'll go elsewhere to get it. If your customer wants to pay with a credit card and you don't have a merchant account, they won't be happy. If you don't eventually get a merchant account, the question won't be whether or not you'll lose business, it will just be a question of exactly how much business you'll lose.

Once you realize how important a merchant account is, it's not hard to see that you need to get set up with one. However, you need to understand that not all merchant accounts are created equal and need to figure out which one is right for you.

When selling on eBay, the chances of a customer and the customer's credit card being in front of you at the time of the transaction are slim to none. Because of this, you need a "card not present" merchant account. This type of merchant account allows you to accept credit card payments without the actual credit card being present during the transaction.

When you sign up for a merchant account, make sure you deal with a merchant account provider experienced in working with online merchants and "card not present" merchant accounts. This will ensure that you get a merchant account tailored to your business and that you are working with a provider who understands your business's needs.

MY RECOMMENDATION....

First, if you don't have a paypal account, you should get one now. You can't be serious about starting an ebay business and not sign up for paypal. Most ebay buyers will want to use paypal.

Paypal works like a merchant account, but doesn't have all the features of a real merchant account. For instance, you can't process a customer's credit card unless they have a paypal account. Some ebay buyers will refuse to open a paypal account, but will want to pay you with their credit card directly.

For these buyers, you will need a traditional merchant account. This will allow you to take credit cards directly, even if your customer doesn't have a paypal account or refuses to get one. I process over 75% of my transactions on my personal merchant account.

With the continuously increasing popularity achieved by blogs, forums and online auctions, free image hosting services are currently in high demand among end users. Such services are designed for many different categories of users, and they basically act like this: by becoming a registered member or by using the public services delivered by a free picture hosting-offering website, one can upload images on the Internet, images which are subsequently stored onto a server and can be viewed by others (random or preferential categories of web surfers) using various types of code.

The process of image uploading is extremely simple and quick: once you have decided which images you want to upload onto the image hosting service-offering website, all you have to do is select those images from your computer and then transfer them to the server by using the “submit” option. High-quality, dedicated free image hosting services enable users to submit multiple pictures at once, transfer them from URL in order to efficiently prevent bandwidth theft (which basically refers to the unauthorized use of someone else’s bandwidth) and also to submit archives containing a succession of images.

Most free image hosting services allow users to upload images in a variety of formats (jpg, jpeg, bmp, gif, tif, tiff, png and swf), including encrypted archives which use the popular ZIP or RAR extensions. Once you have completed the process of submitting your files to the server, you will be able to show your uploaded images to others by either linking with HTML code, linking with BB code or via thumbnails linked to the full-size images.

High-quality free image hosting services are ideal for users who don’t dispose of personal webspace (for instance, they eliminate the need for a personal website with the main purpose of establishing an online image gallery), and offer a wide range of advantages: possibility to create photoblogs, image galleries or even slideshows; possibility to add notes to the uploaded images; possibility to resize images down to a user-preferred size (feature that has been recently introduced by many free picture hosting services).

Most free image hosting services allow users to choose between the public services and member services packages. As a public user, one is entitled to utilize the public upload system, which means that all the uploaded images can be viewed by anyone who accesses the image hosting website. By opting for the public services option, you will benefit from unlimited file uploads, unlimited space, up to 10,000 views per image every month and up to 1GB maximum file size, all free of charge. Once you submit your images, the system will create thumbnails and automate the code creation process for use on message boards, emails, blogs and so on.

If you opt for the member services option, you will be offered additional benefits, such as complete privacy of your uploaded images, unlimited amount of folders to organize your images in, unlimited views per image and up to 30 GB of bandwidth per month. You can either have the code generated automatically in order to use it on message boards, blogs and other similar systems or you can decide to link directly to your images, the choice is yours. Considering the fact that the member services delivered by most free picture hosting websites are also free of charge, it is preferable to opt for this package instead of the public services package in order to be benefited with additional features and more advanced user options.

There are many dedicated free image hosting services out there, so it is relatively easy to find the one that best satisfies your needs and requirements. Before deciding to use such a service, remember to carefully analyze the offered features and distinctive policies in order to ensure that you will obtain the desired results.

Do you really want an online business? This is a simple question, but you should really mull over what you are getting into, and whether you really can or want to make the commitment. People who are new to the Internet, are sometimes mislead into believing that a website is easy to do. The answer to that belief is -- Yes and No. I’ll give you a hint at what skills you need and what to be aware of before you venture online.

Computer Skills

First and foremost, you should enjoy working on a computer. Why? You will find that you may have to commit quite a few hours on the computer when you are building your online business. If you don’t enjoy the computer, you might want to rethink your options.

Second, to eliminate frustration and keep your productivity up, you should have some keyboarding skills. Meaning, you should at least be able to type 25 wpm and know or learn, how to cut and paste. To help to increase your keyboarding skills, look at the site Learn 2 Type (http://www.learn2type.com/index.cfm?action=TypingTest). It’s a free site that can help you with your basic typing skills.

Third, since you are going to be the chief cook and bottle washer of your business, you also need to know how to maintain your computer. On the Internet you need to protect your computer from hacker attacks. So acquaint yourself and your computer with anti-virus, anti-spam, and firewall software – you won’t regret the outlay.

Internet Skills

You should have some basic Internet skills. Such as, uploading and downloading pictures images, and files from the Internet, and understanding basic Internet terminology – the rest will come later. I’m not saying you can’t learn it – you can. But the quickness of your success will pretty much be gauged by what Internet knowledge you bring to the table when you first begin online.

Email Skills

This one is important. Okay, you may be saying – “Email is email. What is the big deal? But on the Internet, you will be acquainted with scammers. Phishing scams abound. It is the newbie that these people hope to catch.

For instance, if you receive an email stating that there is something wrong with your account, and to click on the link to verify that it is okay – DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK. If you do, you’ve just invited a hacker, worm or virus on to your system.

Your Passion

With any business, online or offline, you must have a passion for what you want to venture into. Why? Passion is the juice that will get you up in the morning and to your computer-even when you are ill.

Your passion will even make you think differently about any situation you may face in your online journey. Think about it, if you like what you do, any bump in the road – is just that—a bump in the road. If you hate what you are doing – any bump in the road will derail you. If you don’t have the passion, don’t even think about setting up a website.

Building A Website

If you want to build a website, but you don’t have any programming knowledge, don’t fret. Most web hosting services offer programs that can get you building your own website without any programming knowledge. But you still have to do the work.

Working Your Site

Learning how to make your site profitable will take time, if you have little or no knowledge. You just can’t put a website up and say, “Here is my creation people now come to my site”. It would be nice if it worked that way, but alas, it doesn’t.

You have to invite the search engines to your site. How do you do that? You have to optimize your site for the search engines – and then let the search engines and your target market know that you are out there. Search engine optimization is a long-term strategy of getting hits to your site. It’s long-term because you have to tweak and incorporate keywords into your site without taking away from the quality of the content that you want to give to your audience. After optimization is done, then you should submit your site to the search engines for indexing.

Advertising

You need to advertise your new site on the Internet. Several ways is through press releases and articles.

Press releases will get your site quickly out on the Internet. And articles, they can give you great one-way links that your website needs. And, that small resource box at the end of your article will, or should, entice traffic to your site – which is usually your target market.