Category: Web Traffic

Web Traffic is the topic of this category. Businesses that operate on the Web are similar to those that operate offline in one category. Traffic! Getting traffic – or potential buyers – to your product or service location is the most important thing a business person can do whether s/he be operating online or offline.

Entryway to eCommerce and Affiliate Marketing


A HBB/WBB lifestyle

Our lives were changed forever with the creation of this marvelous resource we know as the Internet (the Web), as well as the mass production of computers from the late 80’s and beyond. Today everyone has the potential to be their own boss, whether the individual identifies with a specific group such as stay-at-home moms, manual laborers, multi-level marketers (MLMers) or home-based business (HBB) owners in general.

Any individual interested in starting a business would need only to do search on Google for business opportunities and such a search will provide more results, in more industries, than s/he could ever imagine. However, even though an individual may think it’s easy to make a living on the Web, such an endeavor actually requires a solid business plan and a lot of hard work.

Although making enough money to support the average lifestyle is admittedly not easy in a HBB and/or Web-based business (WBB), it is possible to start and build such a business while continuing to work on your your current job, and as such, your potential market – once your business gains adequate exposure on the Web – is a lot bigger than that of the typical offline retail stores.

A few WBB types

The first thing you will need to do when starting your own home-based/Web-based business is decide what type of business is right for you, and then do the necessary research to support the viability of your business type. Some possible business choices open to enterprising beginners are:

  • Affiliate Marketing
  • AdSense-Type Programs
  • Ghost Writing (if you’re good with words)
  • Blogging
  • Scrap Booking
  • Selling Information Products (ebooks)
  • MLM (Multi-Level Marketing)
  • Selling on eBay
  • Network Marketing
  • And many more to choose from!

The methodology

A sampling of how the top 3 choices work

Affiliate marketing programs will pay you a commission for promoting and selling products owned and serviced by companies and individuals commonly referred to as merchants. According to this kind of arrangement you, the affiliate, will have very little contact with customers, as role will be to provide sales leads to the merchants with whom you have m ade agreements to promote products/services.

AdSense-type programs will allow you to place contextual advertisements on any website, blog or video you own or produce. These advertisements are most often in the form of links, banners, buttons and badges produced by Google (originator and regulator of the AdSense program), Yahoo/Bing Network, or other such network. You, as the member and website owner/publisher, will receive compensation (few cents at the most) when someone clicks on a banner or link on your website.

The third method is ghost writing which allows you to use your talent as a writer (word smith?) to compose articles, blog posts, and various types of literary works, including press releases, resumes, sales letters (copywriting) etc., for others who may not have the time or skill to do it themselves and therefore are willing to pay you for doing it.

Starting out

You will probable have to start out as an associate (member) of an already established company such as Freelancer or Fiverr that has the system in place, before branching out on your own. But either way your earnings are virtually guaranteed as long as your work is good and you deliver on time.

When it all comes down to it, you’ll need to set up a business and web site to derive the most benefit from either eCommerce or affiliate marketing; and as mentioned earlier such an undertaking entails a lot of hard work, long hours and dedication – although in the end it will prove to be well worth the investment in time, energy and the limited money required to get your business up, running and flourishing.

Do You Have the Moxie to be an Affiliate Marketer?




Marketing the hobby

Each of us has as his/her own, an interest or hobby that we enjoy or are passionate about. Some of us love books, music, and movies while others are into sports and traveling; and still others love to grow flowers and adore pets. These interests/hobbies help us to relax and forget about our everyday problems and other things that trouble us. There are things which can be considered common to people; but not everyone has a hobby that makes money, except those who might love their jobs, which is not a common iteration.

A money-making hobby is an ideal way for an individual to spend his/her time, since it could help that person to treat his/her family and friends every once in a while to something special with the extra cash s/he earns from that activity. In fact some money-making hobbies even make it possible for a number of people to quit their steady jobs which they most certainly hate. It is for this reason that many of today’s independent minded individuals go online to start a business, either to supplement their income or to gradually replace their “nine-to-five.”

Affiliate partners

Affiliate marketing has been, and still is, considered a great way to start making money online!

Affiliate marketing is a revenue sharing partnership between a web merchant and one or more affiliates. The merchant pays his/her affiliate(s) a commission for referring clicks, leads or most sales to a product page or website which is owned by that merchant. The advantage for an affiliate per this arrangement is that s/he can make money in a business where s/he does not have the upfront costs of creating product; but s/he also doesn’t have to worry about e-commerce, bookkeeping or customer support since these tasks are the merchant’s responsibility.

Now, for sure you want to be an affiliate marketer having learned of all those benefits an affiliate could get, right? But do you have what it takes to be an affiliate marketer? Before you begin your venture into affiliate marketing, you need to first decide which area interests you. What products do you know the most about and which products you could do the best job at selling? Once you discover your specialty, perseverance, patience and determination comes next. These are the qualities you should possess if you wish to be a good affiliate marketer.

Learning the ropes

Too many online business prospectors lose out because they become impatient; so an important assessment you should do is of yourself to determine what your strengths are, the things which you are good at and your capabilities and abilities related to your chosen area. That having been said, it is as important as anything else to have a strong desire to succeed in the affiliate marketing vocation.

Becoming an affiliate marketer is not an easy task, because you have to learn the techniques of marketing your product or service; and you really shouldn’t be looking at every affiliate product/service that comes along since marketing is all about attracting you to look at this or that particular opportunity. To be a successful affiliate marketer, you should learn how to listen and to be taught because in life we need to learn skills in order to succeed in just about any endeavor we pursue.

As an affiliate marketer you should know how to effectively market your website, because doing so will enable you to get thousands of visitors coming to your site; and those visitors will transform into more sales for you. This only means that the faster you set up a website, the bigger your chances of making money online in a shorter period of time.

You should also avoid the same mistakes some affiliates make everyday, in the sense that they only building a short-term business where they just make a small sale or two. Make sure you do understand that you should be building a long-term affiliate business and not just something that makes you a few dollars on one sale.

Be a marketing campaign guru!

It is also better to have knowledge about how to up-sell your visitors for more expensive services. This will in turn help you to become recognized as an expert in your field, thus making it easier to make money. There are some individuals who think that just by having affiliate links on their website(s) will bring them good profits. This can have some truth to it, but then most successful affiliates still believe that making use of strong marketing campaigns for their affiliate programs is the way to go.

Keep in mind that affiliate marketers become much more successful when they treat their customers or online visitors as friends. Make a commitment to establish relationships with your customers and especially with visitors to your site. It is very important for an affiliate marketer to have a good business relationship with customers or website visitors. Be creative since one of the real keys to success in affiliate marketing is to develop a good content-based website and weave your affiliate links into your content. You have to provide your prospects with good, quality content to keep them coming back to your site.

So, the question is one you pose to yourself: Do you have what it takes to be an affiliate marketer?

As a token of our appreciation the free ebook titled, Storytelling Marketing can be yours if you have any interest in the art of storytelling. All you have to do is download it here, enjoy the reading and learn how storytelling can be a powerful ally in any business or marketing pursuit!