Marketing Online - Marketing Strategies - Marketing Tips - Internet Business

Affiliate marketers often hear of how much money a competitor is making from PPC. However, done the wrong way, PPC can chew up all your available budget in a day. Done right, you really can profit, and profit big over the long haul, from PPC advertising.

PPC (Pay Per Click) is familiar to everyone now. It’s nothing more than those small text ads on the right that you see on Google or Yahoo when you search for something online.

The hope (validated every day) is that someone will click on an ad rather than, or along with, one of the organic results.

The sad fact is, though, that unlike a newspaper, you can pay, but you are not guaranteed placement. Ads can slip off to a later page or off the search site entirely.

Paradoxically, some marketers find that one the best ways to maximize their PCC dollars is not to aim at a sale at all. Instead, they aim at generating a relationship.

Here are four ways you can encourage your visitors to come back to your site:

#1 – Aim at Creating Relationships, Not One-Time Buyers

A person who clicks on your ad is, almost by definition, a good prospect. They are looking for something they think you are selling, as evidenced by your ad.

Suppose they do click and you hit them right away with sales copy and a picture of the item with its price prominently displayed. Great! You have made the product they seek easy to buy and they can make an immediate buying decision.

Now, what happens if you don’t have exactly what they are looking for at the price you’re offering? They will probably look elsewhere. You have just blown your one chance to make that sale. The money you paid to place that ad is wasted.

Yet by including an opt-in box on your site, you might very well capture that visitor’s name and email. You can then build a relationship through follow up offers.

#2 – Product Reviews

When you shop for an HDTV, you want to know all about the product, not just its price next to a photo. You want to know the screen size, the resolution, and much more that will help you decide if that price is too much or just right. And you probably want a comparison between that product and those of its competitors.

Well-written product reviews provide visitors with that crucial information. The same ideas apply no matter what product is for sale.

Instead of making a sales pitch right away, think about providing more valuable information. People will be more likely to return to your site for that product and others in the same category.

#3 – Testimonials

Believable testimonials offer another way to provide great content for visitors who arrive from a PPC ad click. They’re expecting to be hit with a blatant sales pitch and instead you lay it in more subtly. Offer them trustworthy opinions on the product or service.

If you are selling an ebook, for example, both these methods work well. Unless you are a recognized author with a track record, you need others to brag about the benefits of your book. When lots of ordinary people say they bought it and are happy they did, you are one leg up on the competition. If a “big name” does so, you’re two steps ahead.

#4 – Get Opt-In Subscribers

Opt-in is a stellar way to profit from the majority of PPC ad clicks. Many people who click a PPC ad are just like you. They are not buying, per se; they are shopping.

The more regular subscribers you have, the more chances you have to put your pitch in front of them. A PPC ad click represents one chance to make a sale.

The way many affiliate marketers use it, a PPC ad provides a searcher with a way to purchase one product.

But by establishing an ongoing relationship, complete with integrating some of the above tips, you have many more opportunities to sell not just one product or service, but many: a subset of all searchers — those who are interested in what you offer. They are predisposed to buy your product.

By offering them information and establishing a long-term relationship, you turn a possible one-time buyer into a probable ongoing customer.

Following these ideas will result in more sales over the long run, and not very long at that. At the same time, you will stretch and multiply your PPC budget dollars. That’s something we could all be happy about.

Article marketing has been known to give great results. But this only applies when you know what you’re doing. Without the proper ‘know how’ you’ll end up nowhere.

If you plan on getting those results that experts get, then all you need to do is follow certain key habits to get there.

Just follow these guidelines and before you know it you’ll be writing and submitting articles like the experts!

1.) Submit in a regularly manner and not frequently.

Balance is essential when it comes to the quantity of submission of articles. Take note that if you submit too many articles, you’re quality is at stake. If you also submit too much, publishers might feel swarmed by you and in turn might affect your reputation as well as future submissions.

But submitting too little can lead to unrecognized efforts.

So you’re probably asking yourself, what’s too much and too few?

For article marketing, it’s a standard that you submit somewhere between 1 and 8 articles per month.

2) Demonstrate expertise thru writing rather than promotional articles.

Educational and informational articles that are not self-serving are usually what publisher seeks. This means you don’t mention your own business, products or even your website anywhere on the article. The resource box is where you should place info regarding your business and website, so try to spend effort and time on it. Articles are a way to demonstrate your expertise in a given field. Take note that effective marketers aim to teach than sell.

Your resource box functions like your bio; this is located below your article. This is where you’re free to talk about yourself,your business, products and website. Your resource box is very essential to the effectiveness of article marketing.

Take note that your resource box should entail info regarding you and your business. It should also include a call-to-action to generate click-throughs to your website. And don’t forget to include, and double-check, your link.

4) Have realistic expectations and submit articles consistently over the long term.

Article marketing is a long term marketing strategy that usually takes 3-4 months to see the results. Don’t rush on to see immediate results; perseverance is important so try to hang on. This kind of strategy takes time, patience and devotion.

5) Craft educational, and grammatically correct articles.

Effective article marketers write articles that their target market finds useful and informative. The trick here is that you must take into consideration what your visitors want to know, after which you can proceed to writing your articles, and don’t forget to proofread before submitting.

Remember that your articles are submitted on the World Wide Web, so always proofread several times.

6) Create enticing titles.

Remember that the title plays a vital role in luring readers, so try to focus on crafting attention grabbing titles. If possible, work on titles that will surely grab ones attention on the first look.

Take note that when people are looking through an article directory they’ll likely be looking for a list of titles. So it’s imperative that your title should stand out and capture the readers’ attention.

7) Creativity is essential in making up topics.

An expert article marketer is like being a professional writer wherein you need to come up with fresh ways of writing about your niche.

Articles directed to readers of different skill levels is quite a good thing, this way to newbie’s and advanced readers can read it. Try to be involved in communities in your niche and see what common problems and questions people are having. This way you get tons of info regarding your field.

Remember that in article marketing, you act as a teacher. And as a good teacher, you should find ways to communicate different elements of a subject in such a way that grabs the attention of readers.

Article marketing is probably one of the most effective ways in promoting a business. It’s a cost-effective way to publicize your site, and promote products and services online. It’s also the best and most powerful ways to drive targeted traffic to your site and make sales through Article Marketing.

The goal of small business web site article marketing is to increase sales and build customer base. By including article marketing to your many-sided marketing and sales plan, you can accomplish success in marketing your book. This is how article marketing can aid in promoting your business, it’s your choice.

Try to understand the ways in making your article effective so people can find your website. Set the right mood when it comes to article writing.

Article Marketing is a good alternative especially if you are on a tight budget. Its ability to send your website continuous targeted website traffic is something that you should be considered carefully if plan on using this method of online promotion. The types of articles that help develop a steady flow of new clients are the ones that are submitted to article directories, these help increase your exposure on search engines and in turn delivers even more traffic to your business site.

Take note, article marketing is still one of the best ways in driving web traffic to your site in a viral manner as more and more publishers publish your articles on their sites. Effective articles are the ones passed around the internet and appear on several sites and in ezines.

To get the most out of your article marketing efforts, take note you’re primary aim in writing are your viewers and search engines on second. Another benefit is that it helps your visibility on search engines. When done correctly, article marketing combines the benefits of public relations, positioning and search engine visibility.

Writing and submitting small business marketing articles to article directories on the internet have several benefits. Try to Research and make a list of free article directories you can find so you can simply pass your articles to the sites on your list when you’ve finished writing.

Take note of keywords and phrases, this is essential when you want your articles to be top on the search engines. Try visiting article directories, use the term “article directories” in Google to find plenty, and do a search on these directories to see what information other writers are submitting. The main benefit in writing articles and submitting them to directories is that it establishes you as an expert in your field.

The first benefit of writing and submitting articles online is that it helps to build your reputation and credibility as an expert. Next benefit is that onlinemarketing articles , is that they aid in developing reputation on your particular field or industry. Third benefit is that it helps to generate more links and traffic to your site.

By writing original industry specific small business marketing articles a company or individual can position themselves as experts in their particular field. This includes article publishing and niche marketing. Remember, Article Marketing is not an ad, so rush on writing about how great your product or service is but rather use information that can be useful to readers.

Writing articles may seem an easy thing to do, but you must remember that it’s also easy for someone else to do this as well. When writing your article, lay it out in your ‘key points’ so that readers will find it easy to understand. This way, you make things easy for both you and your readers.

Clarity, consistency and compelling. That should be the aim of a well designed website with a professional feel. The only ambiguity on the site should stand out as being a deliberate design more than a flaw.

Navigation within the site should be effortless and in the standard web format. Most important however, it’s what’s on the site that counts. In other words, content needs to be worthwhile and presented in the most attractive manner to the target audience.

Clarity also defines a good web design. Every page has to be crystal clear about its purpose and instructions, if necessary, and interlinked to the rest of the site in a convenient format.

There are ten tips to achieving a well designed website. The first one deals with the basic purpose and nature of the site. More than bowling the viewers over with stunning visual appeal, it is more important that the look of your site is in line with the nature of content. Think about the kind of impression you want your site to create and how viewers should feel when they visit your site.

The next step involves research of similar sites to get a good idea of all the requirements your site should have. Take note of the positive qualities of other websites as well as the negative, to enable you to incorporate the former and keep out the latter.

Research equips you to take on the next step of planning your website. Draw a sitemap with all the pages the site will have.

User friendliness comes next and this factor is of utmost importance. The most attractive of websites fail in their purpose if users find it difficult to navigate. Logic should determine the site design and navigation format. Avoid gimmicks like image-based cursor over links which can be confusing, if not irritating. Ease of navigation is more important than visual appeal, and the latter can always be incorporated into the basic format.

A good web design involves four major factors, apart from several other guidelines. Images and tables should be incorporated into the design in an aesthetic manner and with the purpose of user friendliness. Consider the number of images necessary for your site, keeping in mind the fact that each file on a web page requires a separate HTTP request to the server. The implication of this is that even if you use only small images of less than 30kb, having a large number of them will still result in slowing down your site. In the case of tables, make sure you don’t use one table for the major part of your site.

Selecting a browser for your website should be done after checking out several options for browsers. You have to ensure that the design of your website is not going to be distorted or adversely altered when viewed on a particular browser. For this, you may have to try the design with different browsers to make the necessary alterations and corrections.

A suitable navigation bar is next. In recent times an increasingly popular trend is the in-site navigation bar which tells users exactly where they are in your site.
Plug-ins have witnessed a spurt in popularity it the past year or so with elaborate graphics and animation effects. Before you litter your site with them, do remember that a majority of users may not have the plug-ins installed to be able to view your embellishments.

Don’t ever underestimate the importance of meta tags when designing your site. Keyword Meta tags and site descriptions are the basis on which search engines include your site. While keeping your site description simple and brief, remember also to avoid cramming too many keywords into it, as they may end up confusing the user when displayed on search results.

Get familiar with these guidelines and you’re ready to begin designing a website that looks good, feels easy and gives valuable information on the subject of the site. That’s what it takes for success in the world of ecommerce.

If you thought merely adding Meta tags and submitting your site to millions of search engine indexes and directories are all it takes to find fame and fortune, you’re way off the mark. The process of search engine optimization is what is integral to making a success of your site.

Rapidly spreading in popularity, search engine optimization is an online marketing tool for any website. With the importance being attached to increasing online sales, search engine optimization is very cost-effective too, in targeting and attracting online customers.

What is Search Engine Optimization?

The term is applied to the selection of specific keyword phrases for a site and improving its chances in getting high rankings when the keywords are used in search engines. It lays emphasis on ranking and promotion techniques to give your site the edge over the competition. In short it involves an understanding of search engine spiders and algorithms arranged in a sequential series.

How Do Search Engines Work to get better Optimization?

It’s essential to learn about the working of search engines and their associates to understand the benefits. Typically, a user types in keyword phrases to conduct a search on search engines. The engines then send out spiders and robots to follow links and index all pages they come across. Different search engines have individual formula for indexing pages with some indexing the entire site while others index only the main page.

Using a combination of factors like link popularity and meta tags, search engines follow their own formula for ranking the sites in the results. Search engines eliminate any possibility of spam as sites with invisible text are banned from most search engines.

Internet Marketing: Have things changed with Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization is a stage in evolution that began with the traditional marketing methods of matching media outlets of TV, radio and print to demographics of age, income, gender, etc. When the demographic group is matched, the message is placed within view of the target audience in the hope of attracting their attention. In order to organize all this information in a logical fashion to make it useful, indices were formed on particular subjects. Even this proved too overwhelming to be practical and therefore the development of the search engine came about.

Now search engines have become the norm for anyone looking for information on the Internet. As the Internet continues its worldwide growth, so do the chances of your product or service being required by more users.

The pay offs with top search engine rankings is bringing in more pre-qualified business leads for your website, leading eventually to more sales. A big advantage of search engine optimization is the cost effectiveness. It works as effectively as traditional advertising in print or TV while costing far less. With search engine optimization, your online brand identity gets a tremendous boost. In order to generate more traffic you need to include specific keywords and features the search engines look for while spidering your site. This is essentially what search engine optimization is. There are certain illegal techniques like cloaking, doorway pages and hidden text for improving top ranking which should not be attempted.

People searching for products, services or information form the targets for search engine marketing. Having a website no matter how good, is not quite enough to attract the kind of traffic it can with optimization. Develop a search engine-marketing plan to suit your business and budget needs. SEO experts can then come into the picture to develop the plan and optimize your site for better ranking.

Before I explain why savvy marketers are building membership sites, I have a confession to make. Membership sites are not something new. They have existed for more than 10 years or since the Internet started to become popular in the mid 1990s. However, membership site software was expensive and internet users held the belief that everything on the Net was free. This dramatically held back the popularity of membership sites.

Things started to change in 2000, in the aftermath of the dotcom crash. The survivors decided that if they want to stay alive, they had to make money from their online endeavors.

A little Internet money making history

The first attempt at making money online were sites were the ecommerce sites selling products such as Amazon, and the broker type sites like ebay. Then sites started publishing advertisements to make some extra cash. These two streams of revenue are still popular, often being used in combination.

Now large numbers of internet marketers are turning to one more source of income paid membership and subscription sites. Many sites that used to be free are either introducing a dual model (paid membership in addition to free services), or are going directly into the paid model. In a breathtaking example, sites like Consumer Reports have over 1 million subscribers, each of them paying $19-26 a year!

So are membership websites just a fashionable trend or is the explosion due to something deeper? Since so many Internet Marketing gurus are scrambling to build paid membership sites, there must be some money-making potential in them.

Membership sites money making potential

Membership websites have not just some, but a ton of money-making potential. First, billions of global users are now using the Internet. This is a huge market. Second, users are no longer reluctant to pay for services or content. Third, many reliable and very low cost payment systems are now available and internet users are increasingly becoming comfortable making purchases online.

Let’s do some quick math: Assume you charge a membership fee of $19.95 a month. The fixed costs of setting up and operating a site could be as little as $100 a month. How many members would you need to break even? How much to get a profit? Now this is month after month after month!

In the rare case when you don’t make profit from the subscription fees, you have already gathered a community to which you can sell other goods and services. In most cases, subscription fees alone can be enough to make a site profitable, far in excess of the potential of ad income.

The simplicity of building an Membership site

Because of the membership systems now available, building a membership site does no longer requires much effort. For the tech savvy, there are systems you can download and install yourself. For the less knowledgeable, you can use a turnkey system that requires no technological ability.

Leverage your existing membership base

If you have an existing clubs or community group why not go online? You already have an active user base, you just need to make the site and accept their payments. Many newspapers and magazines used such a subscription based model to rapidly turn their offline readers into paid online readers. Even an inexperienced Internet marketer will notice the possibility to make money from the existing user base.

Paid membership subscribers are better buyers

Internet marketers have smelled another opportunity that free membership sites don’t necessarily offer the better quality of members. This is especially true for dating and networking sites where the quality of other members is a major differentiator. The explanation is as simple as that if you pay for something when you can get it for free, this something must be really good.

Finally, paid membership makes members more responsible and helps to filter out the occasional visitors from those who are really serious about learning your information. These customers are more likely to apply your information, succeed with it, and tell their friends. In this way, paid membership can help to improve the image of the brand., thus opening to door to many more marketing opportunities.

Referral programs are a brilliant viral marketing strategy because of their explosive growth potential. There are many kinds of referral programs, but they all are systems of benefits for service users that recruit new users. The benefits are sometimes cash, or commissions, sometimes account upgrades.

The explosive growth comes from the fact that each referred user may become a referrer himself. Assuming just five active users are referred by each user, a single user will end up recruiting 3905 users (five to the power of five) after five levels.

Referral Programs as a Marketing Strategy

Exponential growth is a good reason to create a referral program to market a service. The potential to grow is so enormous that everyone should at least try it. This is also a form of viral marketing, since users are doing the actual marketing work. The advertiser does not need to do anything once the ball gets rolling.

The important thing to keep in mind, when launching a new referral program is that most of the users should be of the type that will refer others. This is effectively used in the Get Paid To market, where users, who are trying to earn money online, are likely to try the referral program to add to their revenue.

Another related issue is that the program needs to have enough incentive. If the gains are not high enough, the referral program will not get enough attention. Ways to make it more appealing without risking too much money include adding multiple referral levels, and giving a percentage commission from recurring sales. The potential gain for the referrer is so much higher for these kinds of programs that they are very likely to get noticed.

Potential for Referring

If you have a large network of online contacts, referral programs are a good way to monetize it. When recruiting other it is important to have a good idea of the service through using it yourself first. Then an honest review of it may convert long term users.

The programs to choose are the ones, which offer multiple levels of referral commission, because you also benefit from the exponential growth of the downline. Also those programs with recurring commission instead of a flat referral fee have more potential in the long run.

It is important to choose referral programs with the correct theme to market. If you are marketing them in your blog, or a website, choose ones that fit the theme. Otherwise readers will rarely be interested. It is important to use all channels at your disposal, when you market a program. Don’t just stick with a blog post, but contact any email and IM contact that might be interested.

I hear it all the time from my clients: The Internet is so BIG how can I ever be successful online? While the Internet is big and new tools and techniques pop up every day to help you market online, it makes no sense to pursue any of those tactics until you’ve taken one critical step: Optimizing Your Website.

By Optimizing your Website, I mean making your site visible to the search engines so you’ll rank higher in search engine results when your customers look for your products and services online. While Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) is a whole industry unto itself, here are 3 simple steps you can take yourself to make sure your site can be found when your customers go searching.

1. If your site is currently hosted using shared hosting, ask your host for a dedicated IP address. The cost for this is usually nominal, and the search engine benefits are great.

2. Use a descriptive title for your site as well as keywords tags that allow search engines and your site visitors alike to know what they will find when they visit your web page. Make sure you are placing keywords that appear in your keyword tags within the text of your web pages as well. Your keywords should be specific to your products and services and should be chosen with consideration for the terms your prospective customers use when searching online for your products and services.

3. Make sure every image on your website has an alt tag associated with it. Search engines cannot see images, but they can read the alternate text associated with your images. Make sure to use your keywords in your alt tags for all your images as well.

Nowadays, quite a few ebooks are being sold on the topic of niche marketing. Most of them are written by people that haven’t really “been there and done that” themselves. They just see an unfolding trend toward niche marketing and decide it’s a good bandwagon to jump on. In contrast, I’ve been selling online to niche markets for years (and doing quite well!). I was dealing in niche markets before niche markets were ‘cool‘.

As internet marketing becomes more and more competitive, it’s difficult for marketers to make a profit - especially new, inexperienced marketers. Most of the newcomers read the over-hyped salesletters and fall for the latest, greatest fad that’s sure to make them a million bucks. They buy some guru’s $97 ebook, study it for days and then flop miserably when they give it a go. They’ve not only wasted $97 for the ‘expert advice’ in the ebook - they’ve also wasted a lot of time building a website and a lot of money trying to promote their website with Pay Per Click advertising.

Out of sheer frustration, many new marketers simply give up and quit trying. They mistakenly conclude, due to their own failure, that this internet marketing stuff just doesn’t work. They thought that if they followed the advice in the guru’s ebook, the money would roll in faster than they could spend it. Big mistake!

Contrary to what most internet marketing gurus feed you, buying their ebook won’t make you rich. They tell you that you can sit on the beach, sipping Pina Colodas while people keep sending you money. What a bunch of garbage. It’s never happened that way for me or for anybody I know.

Making money on the internet takes work, just like any worthwhile business does. You have to do the proper research in choosing a profitable market. Besides being profitable, the market you choose also has to be accessible to you. If the competition is too harsh, how can you, as a beginner, hope to out do experienced and firmly established marketers and grab a portion of their business?

Well, you can’t. But, you can carve out your own segment of business by going after market niches - those small segments of the market that aren’t currently being sought after by the big boys. By working in niches, you’ll have far less competition and therefore a much higher likelihood for success.

You see, there are multitudes of niche markets, where people are extremely passionate about their interests, but these markets are considered too small for big companies to persue. Big companies are usually interested in markets that can bring them millions of dollars every month, so a $15,000 per month market doesn’t appeal to them. But if you’re working on your own, an extra $15,000 every month can be very exciting, don’t you think?

Look at it this way - even if you sell in a niche market that only makes you $1,000 a month, what’s to stop you from selling in multiple niches? If you have 10 or 20 niches, all making money, your monthly income can be substantial. Once you find a niche market to go after, you need to find a product to supply that market’s needs. If you like selling digital goods, Clickbank is a good choice. They handle all the customer service for you, so it’s easy and with thousands of products, you can find something for just about every niche that exists.

If you’d rather deal in tangible products, there are other affiliate programs, such as Linkshare or Amazon, although the digital products pay higher commissions.

Finding a profitable niche takes time, usually lots of time. You have to start with an initial keyword for the product you’d like to sell. Then search for that keyword at Google to see how much competition there is. Next, you’ll try to narrow in on a specific target market by ‘fine tuning’ your keyphrase to find a smaller group of potential customers. You keep repeating this process of refining your search phrase until you find a target keyphrase that has fairly low competition but still has enough searches every month to make it worth your time. If you can’t find a suitable market, it’s time to move on to the next idea and start all over again.

I know this doesn’t sound like fun, but finding niche markets can be highly profitable. Although finding a niche can be tedious, the rewards can go on and on for months or even years, so find those profitable niches and finally start making the money you truly deserve!

Starting your own business is a goal of many people, particularly if they want to work from home and give up the daily rat race. By carefully using the internet in a planned and cautious manner you could successfully create an online home business with a relatively small budget and only a little initial knowledge.

The internet provides many ways to earn money and having a business that will generate a reasonable income is within reach of the average home based business person. However, you will need to avoid the many Get Rich Quick schemes out there that are only after a fast buck. These schemes are typically pyramid schemes where the initial promoters make a quick fortune but the thousands of people sucked in at the bottom of the tree lose the lot.

So how do you go about creating a successful online home based business?

The key to making money online is knowing how and where to start. Without the right starting point you will waste precious time and a ton of money.

The business opportunities listed on our main site will give you a great start and help you to achieve online success. See the link to our site in the Authors’ credits following this article.

If you are considering starting you own online home business, then there are a number of things that you should consider.

1. Research Existing Opportunities

Go onto Google and type in “home business” or “home based business”. You will see thousands of opportunities presented. How do you tell the good ones from the bad ones?

Firstly you should look at what the business is selling. Any business MUST sell a product or service in order to stay around for the long term. If the business is just selling memberships in a multi-level pyramid scheme then you may be well advised to be very cautious.

Select a short list of likely looking businesses and then check them out. Look up their history on “WHOIS” and “DNS Stuff” to see how long they’ve been in operation. Generally, the longer the better.

Look them up on Alexa and find out their traffic rankings, to see if they are popular with buyers. Look up their page rank to see if their site is judged by Google to have good content. Look up their back links on Alexa or Yahoo to see how many sites link to them and if those sites are good “authority sites” with high page ranks themselves.

Now look them up in Forums and Article Directories. See if people are saying good things or bad things about them.

If you can, find out something about their size, number of members or affiliates, level of sales, level of support and any other general feedback you can find out about them. See if they are a reputable company by the sort of things other people say about them on the web.

There is plenty of research material available on the web about almost any home business opportunity. You just need to know where to look and hopefully at the conclusion of your research you will have identified several ethical, viable and prosperous opportunities for you to try out.

2. Research the Market for the Product or Service being Sold

Who are the buyers for this product or service? Where do they come from? How do you reach them so that they know the product or service exists?

How much of this product or service will they want? Will there be a continuing market for this product or service? Remember the steam train? That used to have a huge market, but not any more. Make sure that the product or service you are going to be selling has not reached the end of its life cycle.

What about competitors for this product or service? Is the market already flooded, like portable radios? Or is it a brand new market like i-Pods? The best new product examples on the web in recent years are You Tube and My Space, so look for products where you can see a genuine need and where you can see that it will grow or stay around for a long time.

Will there be repeat business for this product or service, or is it a one time capital purchase item? Both types are OK, but you need to know which type you are selling, e.g., people won’t usually buy a dozen refrigerators for the average family home, but they might buy a dozen videos or CD’s.

3. Research the Effort vs. Payoff Requirement

Some businesses on the web pay - like reading paid emails or doing paid surveys - but the amount of time taken to earn a large amount may not be feasible for you.

On the other hand some products like electronic e-books can be set up to sell themselves in an automated manner, thus giving you the maximum return for the least effort.

You should also check out eBay stores. Some people make millions in sales each year just by building up a successful eBay business. However it does take time, effort and the ability to pick, source, market and sell the right products in order to make that sort of money.

You should try and estimate as closely as you can, how much personal effort will be needed to establish the home business, and how much personal effort is needed to run the business.