How to Start a Successful Internet Business in 7 Steps

It’s exciting to think about how much money you can make online. But if you’re new to online marketing, it can also be overwhelming to try to figure out which business model is right for you.

The solution? Keep it simple.

Just follow these seven surefire steps to online profits…

Step 1: Choose a Market

But don’t just choose any market – instead, choose a HUNGRY market. That means you’re looking for a market that is actively seeking paid solutions to their problems.

Here’s how:

• Search marketplaces like Amazon.com and Clickbank.com to see what types of niches attract eager, proven buyers.

• Use a keyword tool like WordTracker.com, the free Google Keyword Tool or what I personally use, MarketSamurai.com to find out what people are searching for. You can enter your proposed niche keywords (like “dog training”) to see if there is a demand, or enter a broad keyword (like “secrets” or “how to”) to uncover new niches.

• Go to EzineArticles.com and browse the top articles to see which niches are popular.

Step 2: Get Your Tools In Place

Once you find a niche that spends money, your next step is to gather your tools. These include:

• A domain name, which you can get at NameCheap.com.

• Hosting, which you can secure at HostGator.com.

• An autoresponder, which you can purchase through Aweber.com.

Step 3: Select an Offer to Promote

Next, you need to find an affiliate offer that you can promote to your hungry niche. The best way to do that is to find out what they’re already buying… and choose a similar offer.

Simply go to Clickbank.com and browse the relevant niche category. Those products appearing at the top of the catalog are your best sellers – you should choose a product near the top of the list.

Just be sure to buy, read and use the product to ensure that it is, indeed, a good product.

Step 4: Write and Upload a Mini eCourse

Your next step is to create an autoresponder series around the topic of your product so that you can promote your offer. Your autoresponder series should be at least 7-12 messages long.

For example:

• You’re selling a copywriting product. You can create a seven-part ecourse on how to write a sales letter. Then promote the copywriting product in every message.

• You’re selling a diet recipe book. You can create a 10-part weight loss course that pitches the recipe book in every message.

• You’re selling a dog training video. You can create a seven part course that teaches the basic obedience lessons such as sit, down and stay. In every message you refer your prospects to the paid video for more information.

Here’s the key: Do NOT solve your prospect’s problems 100%. You want to provide useful but incomplete information, so that your prospects need to purchase your affiliate offer in order to fully solve their problems.

Step 5: Create a Squeeze page

Next, you need to persuade your prospects to subscribe to your ecourse. You do this by creating a mini sales page (AKA squeeze page). This page should include:

• A headline that touts your course’s major benefit (e.g., “FREE: How to housetrain your puppy in just three easy steps!”).

• A list of the other benefits of your course (e.g., “You’ll discover the secrets of turning an unruly, rambunctious puppy into a perfect houseguest!”).

• And a call to action (e.g., “Just enter your name and email address in the form below now, click join and you’ll get instant access to this eye-opening report!”).

You may also provide proof of your claims, such as testimonials, videos, screenshots, pictures and similar evidence.

Step 6: Drive Traffic to the Squeeze Page

Next, you need to drive targeted traffic to your squeeze page so that you can quickly build your list. You can do this by:

• Starting a blog and posting articles that are optimized for the search engines.

• Trading links with other high traffic sites in your niche.

• Being a guest blogger on other peoples’ blogs.

• Co-promoting with other marketers in your niche (e.g., endorsing each other in your newsletters).

• Submitting articles to EzineArticles.com and other article directories.

• Using social media sites like Squidoo.com, Yahoo! Answers, and Facebook.com.

• Participating on niche forums or in niche blog discussions.

Step 7: Add Messages to Your Autoresponder Series

Once you’re getting traffic, building your list and making a profit, you can start adding even more messages to your autoresponder – anywhere from a couple months’ worth of messages to a year or more.

That way you’ll make money virtually on autopilot – all you have to do is build your list and let your autoresponder do all the work!

Summary

Making money online doesn’t have to be complicated, not when you follow these seven easy steps!

To YOUR Success,

Traci Knoppe

P.S. Want to learn more about the affiliate marketing business model? Check out Genesis Affiliate System

NAMS Workshop in Atlanta: Here I Come!

Flying to Atlanta for NAMSFor those who follow me on Twitter, or who may happen to glance periodically in my sidebar and see my tweetstream, you may notice this hashtag: #NAMS appearing more often of late.  NAMS stands for Niche Affiilate Marketing System Workshop that is held in Atlanta every year.  It’s a workshop conference to learn about affiliate and internet marketing. NAMS begins this Friday (August 14-17, 2009) and I’m leaving tomorrow (August 13) and flying to Atlanta for this event.

Unfortunately, NAMS is sold out. Even though many other internet marketing conferences have had to cancel due to poor registrations – NAMS sold out! That’s because NAMS isn’t like any other internet marketing conference. It isn’t a ‘pitch fest’ where you listen then ‘get to’ go spend tons of money buying more stuff.

At NAMS the registration numbers are kept small, and then you are divided into groups (Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced) according to your experience level and other factors that would determine your group placement.  Internet marketing leaders (such as Willie Crawford, Jeff Herring, Lynn Terry and many others) teach sessions and then after each session will meet with their specific groups to help them implement what they just taught them! This is what makes NAMS so powerful. You aren’t just sitting them filling your head full with information that you aren’t quite sure how to implement; at NAMS, they will help you right then and there implement and help you take your business to next level and help you succeed!

So as you can see just from what little I’ve shared, NAMS is special. But it’s the networking opportunities that make NAMS truly special. The people you get to put a ‘face with a name’ that you’ve been communicating with online, the interviewing opportunities, the potential for Joint Ventures to be made… so as you can see, NAMS is a full-on working business trip, that will definitely bring about positive results for anyone who goes and applies themselves and what they learn.

Okay – so my going on and on about NAMS has you bumming because you’ve missed out and you aren’t going. Well, the good news is that David Perdew, the organizer of NAMS has now made it possible for NAMS to come to you – via flashdrive! You can order NAMS4U flashdrives at an excellent price. I highly recommend you do so to get the speaker’s content and information.

So, I will be blogging from NAMS; post pictures and updates. So watch for it!

To YOUR success,

Traci Knoppe

P.S. If you’re not going to NAMS this week, go today to get your NAMS4U Flashdrive before they sell out; and mark your calendars for next August and plan to join me at NAMS in 2010.

Why I Love Affiliate Marketing – Part 5

NOTE:  The following is a guest post from one of my favorite
internet marketing mentors from whom I learn affiliate marketing.

Why I Love Affiliate Marketing – Part 5
By Jimmy D. Brown of “Affiliatenaire”

The word “overhead” is not a favorite among those who run
businesses of any kind.  Nobody likes the expenses of
operating a business.  And nobody really talks about them
much when it comes to promoting all of the “money-making”
products and services online.

But, don’t kid yourself, there’s a lot of overhead.

That brings me to the fifth reason why I love affiliate
marketing…

** You don’t need a big budget to make it work **

Do you have any idea how much money is spent running an
internet business? There are monthly fees for…

* Autoresponders
* Hosting
* Management
* Advertising
* Scripts
* Much more

There are regular fees for…

* Licensing
* Outsourcing
* Support
* Customer Service
* Maintenance
* Development
* Recruting
* Much more

It’s not uncommon to spend tens of thousands (even
hundreds of thousands) of dollars in operational
costs — which is fine if you’ve been in business
a while and are making the bucks. However, if you’re
a newcomer, it can be taxing on your budget!

SIDEBAR:  I paid one girl over $30,000 last year
just to oversee one small part of my business.
No one talks much about it, but there ARE a lot
of expenses involved before you get to the
“bottom line” of profit.

BUT, with affiliate marketing, you don’t need a big
budget to make it work! You can simply use a variety
of free and low-cost marketing methods to generate
clicks to your affiliate link.

That’s why I love affiliate marketing.

You don’t need a big budget to make it work.

…………………….

Jimmy D. Brown is the author of “Affiliatenaire”, teaching
you how to create big-time affiliate commission checks in
only 1-3 hours each week.  Discover how you can get cash in
the bank without a website, experience or even an idea!
Visit http://genesisblogging.com/affiliatenaire/