The Toll Men

The internet is wealth creating resource. It has made millionaires of countless individuals who have found ways of providing products/services via the internet. This site is for e-marketers and future or home-based business owners. Here you’ll find ways to make money on the internet as well as work-at-home resources to help get you started. First, let’s start with the most common ways of making money online. Below are the 6 most common ways used today to earn income on the net:

Buying and Reselling/Ebay
Drop-shipping
E-trading
MLM (Multilevel Marketing) and Direct Selling
Affiliate/Referral Programs
“Out of the box”

1. E-bay Selling - Buying and selling products is one the most common ways of making money online. It can be very profitable if you find, make or channel a product that is in demand for example: e-books/information, electronics, furniture, office supplies, apparel, etc. The key is to out-think the competition, since the creation of the Ebay phenomenon thousands of sellers have monetized on the opportunity. It’s important to find a product that you’re familiar with in order to be an effective seller; for example, don’t sell computers if you don’t know what “processor speed” is, you’ll just set yourself up for failure. If your having trouble finding a product try going to WWB, they offer products as well as information/ tools on how to find niche products and sell them on Ebay. You can also go to the Ebaystore to set up an inexpensive storefront if you don’t want to build your own.

Drawbacks to Ebay selling are:

Finding/making a profitable product
Can be time consuming (Plan to spend 20-30 hrs/week)
Very competitive market

2. Drop-ship- Drop-shipping is very similar- however the advantage to drop-shipping is that you don’t have to worry about moving the products yourself. With drop-shipping you’re really working as a third party in the sense that you find vendor’s who’ll drop-ship, and when you make a sale, they deliver the products directly to the customer for you-thus, no inventory or overhead costs? It can also save you the money and hassle of running to UPS every month to send/receive shipments. Another perk is that you don’t have to buy the product before you sell it! You simply take the order and give it to the manufacturer for shipping, and you receive a check, without having bought a thing. I know I make this sound pretty easy but in fact it takes an adequate amount of information gathering in order find hot products. The first thing you will need to obtain is a drop-ship directory in order to find vendors who drop-ship, it will cost you anywhere from $55-85, but the money you spend will more than pay you back in safety and time. The only source I recommend for directories is WorldWide again because their the only vendor directory provider that’s Ebay certified-there’s a lot of fakes out their posing as drop-ship providers who are really just “middlemen” trying to collect a commission.

Drawbacks to drop-shipping are:

It can be extremely time-consuming finding reputable vendors with profitable products that will work with drop-shippers.
Backorders and returns can be a headache if you’re with a bad vendor.

3. E-trading is a trend growing more in popularity everyday. Right now the biggest e-trading market is Forex (Foreign Exchange Market) which has a higher turnover rate than the U.S. equity market. Foreign currency trading is a VERY lucrative market and involves simultaneously buying and selling currency online. Transactions take place OTC (Over the Counter) or via internet/phone, as there is no centralized location for trade such as with the stock or futures markets. Not only does Forex offer trading tutorials and conferences for you to learn to trade, but they also allow novice traders to get a taste of the market by allowing you to begin trading with as little as a $25 investment. Forex trading time is short in nature as it does not require long periods of holding before trading as with stocks or bonds. Actually 85% of all currency transactions last around a week or less. A great benefit of trading with Forex is that you aren’t charged commissions or exchange fees. They also offer “real time” price quotes. Go over to Forex.com to get more information about the currency trading market and how to get started.

Drawbacks:

Plan to have an investment of at least $250 to see the big bucks.
The market can be very sporadic and due to the short term nature you will need to stay informed (daily, even hourly) of trends and economic changes that will cause value fluctuation.

4. MLM and Direct Selling business opportunities in my opinion are the most misrepresented and underestimated income opportunities on the web. Most of this is due to false and misleading claims about products/services and income potential made by shady distributors and sales associates. Multi-Level Marketing or (MLM) companies are organizations that provide a product or service and market it by “word of mouth” advertising or paying independent distributors to sell the products as oppose to paid advertising i.e., radio, TV, newspaper. These distributors sell the products and receive commissions; however the majority of the money is made by “referring” or bringing in more distributors, who then bring in more distributors, and so on. The key to these businesses is to find established and legit companies with good commission structures and not spend time and money on small, “fly by night” corporations. Direct Selling is really in essence MLM (even though they try hard to distinguish themselves) except the products that are usually sold are “higher ticket” or more expensive products. Direct selling allows you to make more money with fewer recruits because you have higher commissions. Both of these opportunities are for people who desire and motivation to “run their own business”, because once you recruit people in under you, you have to teach them how to do the same, it’s called the process of “duplication” which involves duplicating the work habits of successful individuals and teaching others to do the same. Income is unlimited and residual, so even when you retire from the business (realistically anywhere from 2-4 years) you’ll still receive checks! An initial investment is required for both opportunities in order to purchase the products and/or start-up kit so if your not looking to invest anywhere between $50-250 for an MLM or at least $500-2k for Direct Selling maybe these businesses aren’t for you.

Drawbacks:

With so many un-established companies on the internet its hard to discern what companies are paying real people real money, so do your research before pulling out your credit card.
There is a high drop out rate in MLM’s due to lack of adequate training from the recruiter/upline and or motivation on the recruits part, so choose your upline carefully because some members will recruit you then leave you on the corner.
Direct selling is bit more challenging due to the type of products/services being offered. It’s more challenging to sell due to the fact that a lot of people who are looking for a business are doing so because cash is tight, so most of them don’t have a grand to invest in order to start (believe me I know).

5. Last but not least we have Affiliate programs. Affiliate programs are perfect for people who don’t want to sell their own product, don’t want to talk to people on the phone or in person, and/or don’t want to spend a lot of money. An affiliate is someone who advertises a company’s services/products on their site by placing banners/ads of the company’s site on their website. When the organization makes a sale from your website link, and in some cases even a referral from the affiliate’s site, the affiliate receives a commission. Affiliate marketing is inexpensive to start because 99% of the companies don’t charge you to become an affiliate, and why should they? I mean after all you’re bringing them visitors, which turns into more sales revenue. You don’t have to have your own site to be an affiliate, but it is necessary if you’re looking to attract more visitors and make more money. The key is joining a good handful of affiliate programs so that you can create multiple streams of income, that’s how top affiliates earn thousands/week.

Drawbacks:

It can be challenging finding quality affiliate programs to join. Many companies claim to “have the best” program.
If you don’t have traffic, what’s the point? It’s better if you actually KNOW HOW to bring traffic to websites. Many affiliates make money due to the fact that they don’t know how to market their programs.

Not enough??? Well try thinking out of the box. Most successful online marketers created income by simply finding a need or a solution for a product/service. For example, while vacationing in Colorado a few years ago I came across a guy who’d made millions simply by creating a website/lead capture page that surveyed people who were searching for real estate. The page, he stated, basically was a questionnaire collecting information about their requirements: price range, number of rooms, location, etc. After receiving the information from the site, he then sold their information as leads to mortgage companies and real estate agents in those local areas! This can be a very profitable business venture because real estate agents are always on the hunt for warm leads. You can even apply this to any other business where leads are sought after.

Don’t let drawbacks discourage you!! All of these strategies are viable and the most commonly used ways to make money online. You just have to have believe that you can be successful-besides what business doesn’t have its drawbacks? See you at the top!!!

www.e-wmn.com

Can Google Really Deliver Country Specific Searching?
By: Martin Lemieux

This is a serious matter, can Google really deliver top quality search results for other countries? The answer so far is “sort of”. In this article I will use Canada as an example of the quality or lack of thereof, that is delivered by Google’s search results.

Let’s take a look at Canadian search results by Google.ca:

When you highlight “Canada” through Google search results and then start searching, you may be surprised at the amount of companies that aren’t really Canadian. All of this also applies for the UK and other major markets as well…

In fact, many of the “paid results” come from American companies. Now some would argue that this is to be expected, coming from American companies with large budgets but I would disagree because a lot of the bulk of the “Canadian specific” results are also American companies.

It is quite evident that this is a growing concern with business owners residing in different countries.

As an owner not from the US, I would rather compete with companies that are more local than not, simply because the results would then be relevant. Irrelevant results equal to poor results and less people take the search results seriously when they keep sifting through poor quality results online.

For example; If you highlight “search in Canada” and search for “web design”, the top 2 results seem not to be from Canada. This is a serious issue. What if people click on “I’m feeling lucky”, they are redirected to a company outside of Canada. The average person won’t know what to think about that and may disregard searching through Canadian results any further.

The more content specific the results are, the more people will search through those results. The more people will tell their friends & peers to search through those results. See, as web marketers, we do have the power to create a search term that people get familiar with. Just look at “Blogging”. A couple of years ago, if you asked people to search online for “blogging” sites, you would have had a lot of confused faces staring at you. Nowadays, if you search for blogging, there are more than 900,000 results found in Google and to top that off, there is more than enough paid advertisers as well.

What do we see changing in Google?

The #1 thing we are now seeing more and more is search results listing websites with country specific domain name extensions. Here’s what I mean by that….

If you were Google and you wanted to deliver better search results for Canada, how would you go about doing that?

I would look at 2 things:

1) Does the domain name end with .ca? (Ex. www.smartads.ca)
2) Does the “contact” information about the company match the country - Street, City, Province/State, Country. Are all of these factors listed within the contact page?

These are very important factors, evidenced to the fact that, I see Google weighing your “contact” page higher than anything else within your website other than your front page. So the moral is, make sure to list EXACTLY where it is that you do business within your contact page. Your website will rank higher for local searching when this technique is utilized.

Second, make sure to buy a domain name(s) that is country specific. If you live in Canada, buy a domain with the extension (.ca). If you live in the United Kingdom, make sure to buy a domain name with the extension (.uk). If you live in the US, make sure to buy a domain name with the extension (.us).

You may be asking, what if I don’t want to concentrate on just local searching? Create a separate website to target different areas. There is nothing with .com, in fact most people automatically type in .com but, if you truly want to target locally, you have to play locally.

The future of search engines is local searching! We are seeing an increasing amount of evidence to sustain this claim. Targeting locally is a great start and will ultimately help you to target internationally later on!

I hope this article helps you out!

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Reprint Rights: You may reprint this article within your newsletter or website as long as the entire article remains the same, including the author information.

About the Author

About The Author:

Martin Lemieux
Smartads Advertising Network

International: http://www.smartads.info
Canada: http://www.smartads.ca

Canadian SEO Consultants Directory: http://www.seoconsultants.ca
Canadian Search Engine: http://www.smartadsearch.ca

Sales training is something that you need. Opening the classified ads for jobs will tell you just how many positions there are in the sales world. Experienced sales individuals can make quite a bit of money. But, how can you get the training that you need to be in those ranks? Nothing is more frustrating than having an opportunity to get experience but being told that you need experience to get it. To help this, you can invest in getting sales training.

The Benefits

Sales training is beneficial. Depending on your sales field, you can find that having the knowledge you need behind the sale is what is going to drive you to the sales goals you have. Sales training truly does prepare you for every possible reaction a customer may have. It allows you to be prepared so that the first time you step out onto the sales floor, you are doing well.

Sales training can also help you to get that job. Positions that are open look favorably on individuals who have been trained. Many sales positions are available to individuals with less experience with sales training. This is a definite plus on the resume.

Getting The Sales Training

Getting the sales training that you need is not hard. There are excellent opportunities for you in just about every media. Even online sales training courses are available to help you reach the next level in your career. If you are not sure that there is something right out there for you, just take a look at community colleges. In fact, some of the businesses that need you will even provide sales training to you.

All in all, it takes a few weeks of solid learning to be ready to get out there and achieve your goals. Whether your goal is to get experience in sales to get an even bigger career in place or to simply to do well in the job that you have now, sales training can help you go from good to excellent.

For more information please see www.sales-training-help.co.uk

© 2004, John Calder
http://www.TheEzine.net

Ever since Amazon launched what is perhaps the most well-known, but not the first, affiliate program in 1996, other merchants in every business category imaginable have followed suit. And even though many webmasters have earned money from these programs ever since, there are still a lot of questions to this day about affiliate (also known as associate or referral) programs. So maybe it’s time to revisit some basics for new or soon-to-be Internet marketers.

An affiliate program is, at the bottom line, a commissioned sales job. Like the Fuller Brush salesman of old, you are an independent representative of a company, offering their products or services to potential customers. When one of them buys, you get a percentage of the sale. But, in the high-tech version, you have a few very powerful advantages over the classic door-to-door sales rep.

To start, you can represent multiple products from more than one company at a time, on as many web sites as you own, in as many markets as you choose. You don’t have to travel anywhere, yet the web puts you in front of a worldwide market. This gives you an incredible diversity of products, markets, and “neighborhoods” to sell in, all from right in front of your computer screen. You could possibly make multiple sales at one time, yet you never have to deal with door-slammed-in-your-face rejection. On the Internet, you don’t always even have to make a sale to earn a commission. Some affiliate programs will pay you if someone just clicks on a link at your site, fills out an application, or even asks for more information. And here’s the best part - your web sites work for you around the clock, every day.

Commission rates vary by type of product. Physical goods (that have to be shipped) tend to pay lower rates than products like software or ebooks that can be digitally delivered. However, 5% of a $2000 TV is more than 50% of a $50 ebook, so you have to remember to look at the big picture when deciding what affiliate products to offer. For best affiliate sales results, you’ll want to offer products and services designed to appeal to the target audience of your web site. For example, it makes no sense to place affiliate links to mechanic’s tools on a cooking site, while it makes perfect sense to place them on a site about restoring cars.

There are several ways to join affiliate programs. Some companies operate their own program, and you will apply through the company web site. But many merchants choose to operate through an affiliate network. These third-party companies offer sign-up, tracking, payment, and overall affiliate program management services to merchants and affiliate marketers. A few top names are Commission Junction, LinkShare, and Clickbank. Just search for “affiliate program” or “affiliate network” and you’re bound to find more.

Your sales and clicks are tracked by software. It’s your responsibility to make sure your links follow the guidelines stated by your merchant or affiliate network. Some browsers, ad-blocking software, link cloakers, and coding techniques (such as frames) can prevent the tracking links on your site from working properly, and you may not get credit if one of your clicks leads to a sale. Most all affiliate marketers sooner or later run into this, and when it happens, it’s not intentional, so don’t feel victimized. Technology is very good, but it’s not perfect.

For almost every Internet marketer, affiliate marketing offers a fast and inexpensive way to get started in an online business. These programs can help you generate income while you learn the ropes and work towards developing your own product or service, if that’s your goal. And yes, you can even become an affiliate for the Fuller Brush Company!

About the Author

John Calder is the owner/editor of The Ezine Dot Net. Subscribe Today and get real information YOU can use to help build your online business today! http://www.TheEzine.Net

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Almost everyone is giving away a freebie so they can
attract people to their web site. They are giving away
free e-zines, ebooks, services, etc.

What’s happening
to all this free stuff? It’s loosing it’s perceived value.

Every time you surf the internet or check your e-mail
you see at least 20 to 50 freebies offers.

Don’t get me wrong freebies do increase traffic, but
not like they did when the internet was new. The key
is to increase the perceived value of your freebies so
they will be more attractive to your audience. How
do you do this? Well, here are eight ways:

1. You could tell them what the freebie is worth with
a dollar amount. For example, “Subscribe to my free
e-zine! A $199 value!”

2. You could add other freebies to your freebie that
will increase the value. For example, “Subscribe to
my free e-zine and get free access to our “subscribers
only” private web site!”

3. You could tell them the freebie is only available for
a limited time. For example, “Download our free
ebook, this free offer will only be available until May
30, 2000.”

4. You could tell them the freebie is only available to
a limited number of people. For example, “Our free
software will only be available for the next 100 people
that download it.”

5. You could give more details about the freebie.
List the benefits, features, what problems the freebie
will solve, etc.

6. You could describe your freebie to sound more
attractive. For example, instead of “free report” you
could say “free never released top secret document”

7. You could list testimonials for your freebie. Most
businesses don’t give testimonials for their freebies.
This would defiantly increase your freebies value.

8. You could tell people how many people have
already receive your freebie. For example, “15,000
people have already subscribed to my free e-zine!
Can they all be wrong?

These are only a few ways you can add value to your
freebies. You could be creative and think up some
other ways to increase the perceived value of your
freebies. Also test each idea to see which one draws
the most traffic to your web site.

===
Helene Malmsio has been a successful business entrepreneur for nearly 30 years and has been operating Strategic Services group of Companies since 1987.

Article reprinted with permission from Strategic Services. All rights reserved.

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About the Author

Helene Malmsio has been a successful business entrepreneur for nearly 30 years and has been operating Strategic Services group of Companies since 1987.

For more information on how to publish your own ebooks and ezines for profit, and to get your own copy of our free self publishing ebook, go to
http://www.buybooks-online.com