Saturday, March 24, 2007

Do I Need a Web Designer?

When business owners decide to take business online, the question always comes up, “Do I need a web designer or can I build my own website?”
Both options are very viable, but you need to decide what’s best for you and your business.
Here’s some things to consider:

If you hire a web designer, you don’t have to worry about learning how to build a website – which is a relief to many people. This means you can concentrate on the more important tasks of your business.

However, do realize that building a website is not as technical as it has been in the past. There are plenty of web-building options that are basic point-and-click technology. If you work with a designer, you will be subject to that designer’s schedule. Designers have other clients to manage and they need to prioritize any updates or changes you need to make to your website. This can be a drawback because the Internet is an amazing marketing medium where it’s easy to quick changes and test out new marketing ideas at minimal cost. When your business needs to wait for a designer to make changes, you may fall behind in your development.

Still, if you build your own website, there may be a time where you need to turn to a designer or a programmer if you need special features on your website. Of course, you can learn how to do all these things if you’re so inclined, but it can be a time-consuming and sometimes complicated task. This means if you need a message board, shopping cart or other special function, you may need to turn to a designer or a programmer for that task.

Overall, if you want to save money and have more control over your web presence, you will want to have a hand in your own web development. You might choose to use a site builder that offers many of the features you are looking for (ex. shopping cart, mailing lists, etc.) and uses the point-and-click technology mentioned earlier. That way, it’s easy for you to create an online presence without a huge learning curve and you still have time to focus on the more important aspects of business.

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Looking for an even easier option to build your web pages? Take the comprehensive website builder at Internet Based Family for a 10-day test trial. You can choose from over 1200 templates and your account includes all kinds of interactive features including: message board, shopping cart, mailing list, coupons and more.

How to Make Your Own Web Page

Whether it's for business or personal use, it seems like everyone has a web page these days. That may be because it's become so affordable and easy to put a web page together. Web page building is no longer for the "tech geeks". Once upon a time, you had to learn HTML (hyper-text markup language) to build a web page but today you have so many options to create your own website that don't require you to learn complicated coding. You can use a WYSIWG (What You See Is What You Get) editor like Microsoft's FrontPage. This software allows you to write your web page as you would any other document and you can drag and drop images easily. It takes a bit of practice to make things look the way you'd like, but you can also purchase templates to create a professional look and feel.

So, now we know that you don't have to be a technological genius to build a web page -- what else do you need to create your web presence?

Domain: This is the name of your website. You will need to purchase a name that will represent your company or personal web presence. For example: ebay.com is Ebay's domain name.

Web Host: You will also need to find a company that will store your various files on the Internet. This is called a web host. You usually pay them monthly for their service.

Your Next Steps to Building Your Web Page:

WYSIWG software can cost hundreds of dollars and allows you to build web pages that provide basic information to your visitors. If you are looking to have more interactivity and features to your web page like: message board, shopping cart (allows you to securely sell products on your site), mailing list, coupons and other options, you may want to look at a more comprehensive web building service, like the easy site builder at Internet Based Family. You can also purchase your domain there and they will host your pages on the Internet. There is a 10-day free trial to help you ensure it's the right web-building tool for you.

All in all, building a website isn't as complicated as you may have thought previously. All it takes is some point-and-click web building software, a domain name and a web host.

Friday, March 23, 2007

What is a Niche and Why do You Need One?

No matter where you go online, you are likely to hear the same thing. “Before you can get started with your online business, you must find a niche.” You will do well to pay heed to this advice, especially if you are new to Internet Marketing.
Each day, thousands of people go online in search of, you guessed it, WEALTH. So many, tend to jump right into those markets that are already so completely saturated with competition and then wonder why it is that they are failing to make any money.
If a person has unlimited money, time and patience, they may have a chance at succeeding. But what about those who do not have unlimited supplies of these resources, it would then be much wiser to start your online business having a smaller niche market.
So what is a niche anyway?
You could purchase anyone of the hundreds of e-books telling you all about niche markets and get the longer answer. Or you could find the definition of a niche from the dictionary. But to give you the shorter version, niche simply means individual or distinct.
Seems everyone and their mother wants to start an Internet Marketing business. The big guns are making their money in this niche market, so it must be the way to go, right. Wrong, that’s the problem. So many people have years of experience in this area, that they have totally saturated the market. So, when someone new tries to compete in this broader market, they will likely not have any chance of success.
Susan Ward on About.com, defines Internet Marketing as “the strategies that are used to market a product or service online, marketing strategies that include search engine optimization and search engine submission, copywriting that encourages site visitors to take action, web site design strategies, online promotions, reciprocal linking, and email marketing". Anyone who is new to starting an online business will not know enough about all of the areas above to be able to compete in this fast pace market.
So can a new person have a chance at becoming successful? Yes.
But you must think smaller – think niche!
You could possibly come up with any one of the following niches just from the definition above:
CopywritingLinkingMarketingEmail MarketingWeb Site DesignSearch Engine Optimization
Even if you are already extremely experienced or lucky in any one of the above niches, there is still a lot of competition out there in these broader niches. You may decide to do this anyway in the end, but spend some time exploring smaller niches within the more broad areas. This may lead you to finding a niche that you are better suited to anyway.
Finding just the right niche market can be time consuming, for this reason using a resource such as Wordtracker can be helpful. Even though you can find similar software programs on any number of sites, Wordtracker will help break a broad site concept down into many smaller niches.
What you will end up with by using software such as Wordtracker is a list of keywords relevant to your niche that your can focus your business on. Choose a smaller niche so that you will have a better shot at being successful with your business, rather than a broader topic such as Internet Marketing.
Keep in mind, that in order to be successful in any business, it all comes down to supplying a product or service that the public has a demand for and the market has room for. Discover the right niche and you will discover that you are on the right path.

Article by:
Connie McKenzie is a full-time work at home mom who is dedicated to providing detailed information on various subjects including working from home. Learn more about how you can build a profitable online business and work from home. Watch the free video at : =>
www.getqualityresults.com

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Three Common Obstacles When Starting Your Home Business-And How To Overcome Them

Starting your own Home Business can be an easy decision to make but not one that is always easy to stick with. There are many obstacles that will test your faith in the system that you are working. This may ultimately lead you to question yourself and your new career choice.
These slumps will actually ‘make or break’ your online success and your companies if you are not prepared for them. How you react to these obstacles will set you apart from the next guy. If you are able to go into your new venture with a plan and have solutions to the problems that you are able to for see, then you will be starting with a solid foundation.
Three common obstacles that you may face when entering into the online industry are:

1) Lack of Money-
This is an issue that most will encounter. Especially when a lot of times people are looking to work from home to supplement their income due to lack of money. Yet we have all heard the saying “It takes money to make money” and this couldn’t be more true when starting a Home Business. My mentor once said, that if you were to purchase a McDonalds franchise, they wouldn’t give you the restaurant then wait for you to make money before they expected to be paid! Owning and operating your own Home Business should be thought of the same way. I know that there is a lot of negative press in regards to investing in a work from home opportunity before you yourself is paid. But I don’t know of a single business that doesn’t require funds to start up. This is the same mind set that you need to have in order to get passed this hurdle. Also recognize that any money put towards your business is tax deductible. A word of caution though: before purchasing any program, check for 100% money back guarantee.

2) Afraid of the Unknown-
Trust me, I went from occasionally surfing the Internet and checking and sending email, to building and maintaining my own website! I knew absolutely nothing about HTML and was quite nervous and intimidated at first. That was before I discovered all the wonderful resources and bounty of information available online. You can find answers to almost anything these days right at your own fingertips! Not to mention the many Forums and Discussion Boards that are full of like-minded people doing exactly what you are trying to accomplish. If you are someone that doesn’t respond to reading pages and pages of material, perhaps hiring a student or tutor from a local college would give you the head start you need to jump start your business. For myself, I went through four ink cartridges with my printer! I actually printed so much valuable information that I was able to create textbooks to study and refer back too. This also helped alleviate the eyestrain that goes along with reading hours of text from a computer screen! If you’re too impatient to print for hours, then there is loads of literature and books available at your local bookstore on any subject you desire. There are also plenty of eBooks online and programs that you can purchase to help you along.

3) Afraid of Failure-
It takes willingness, passion, discipline, and a lot of hard work to commit to working from home. Anyone who tries to tell you different would be mistaken. You have to exercise time management and have the determination to stay on track. Try and decrease the distractions surrounding you by creating an environment that will enable you to focus. What works for me, might not for you. You need to find your ‘niche’, and then stay consistent. You also need to recognize that working from home can prove challenging and that sometimes before success there is failure. Being able to learn from your mistakes can be the best lessons. Before those mistakes prove costly, make sure you do your research on the company that you’re interested in and all that is required. Understand that we are all afraid of failing, but if life didn’t have risks it would be pretty boring and there would be a lot less successful entrepreneurs around the world.

Committing to work from home can sometimes be challenging, but it can also be extremely rewarding. Enjoying the freedoms that staying home provides, outweighs any obstacle that I have encountered. Stay positive and you will be on your road to success!

And always…keep your eye on the prize!

Written by: Tammy Akmens
http://www.liveworkathome.com/