Starting online businesses from home is easier now than ever before. There are great companies that will set you up and empower you with the all the tools you need to create a serious income online from home. But what then? You've got all the greatest tools, a great product or service to offer, and all the excitement of a child on their first day of school, but what do you DO? Where do you find your customers? The most important factor in creating successful online businesses from home is learning to drive traffic to your website or sales funnel. More traffic means more sales, more income, more time freedom, and ultimately the best chance of living the life of your dreams. This third article in this series on how to start a business from home and make money online offers the top 3 FREE and top 3 PAID marketing methods for generating traffic quickly, and long into the future.
You may have heard it said before that you can either work for your traffic, or you can pay for your traffic. There are advantages to each, of course. You have to decide what fits your current situation the best. If you have a large budget and less time to put in, you'll want to focus more on the paid methods. If you have very little money, but some time and some drive, you'll focus more on the free methods. If you've got a combination of some cash and some time, you'll want to combine the two, and possibly look at outsourcing options.
Get Traffic For FREE!
Article Marketing - Some online businesses from home are built and sustained primarily on this one method. While it may take some time to get enough articles posted to drive sufficient traffic to create the income you're looking for, these articles have a residual effect. If you post an article tomorrow, it will be there, bringing in visitors to your site for the days, weeks, months, and years to come (unless you remove it). The power of this tool should not be underestimated. If you're saying to yourself you're not a writer, you need not be. There are ways to provide great value for your readers and dominate great keywords without being a great writer.
Video Marketing - Again, you could start a business from home and make money online using this method alone. The key here is understanding tags and keywords, learning to provide value to your audience, and understanding how to turn viewers into prospects, and eventually into customers and business partners. Success leaves clues. A good mentor will teach you everything you need to know to be successful with this method. You need not be a movie star or have a great on camera personality. There are simple, FREE tools like Windows Moviemaker that can create very professional videos using photos, text, music, and audios in minutes. Videos also have that beautiful residual effect, where they're working for you 24/7, now and long into the future.
Social Media (Web 2.0) - If you've been anywhere near civilization in the last few years, you're well aware of things like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. These social networking tools can be a tremendous source of traffic when used correctly. The best approach that's used by the pro's is to treat these mediums like a big cocktail party. Would you run into a party screaming about how you just started a business from home to make money online, spitting on people while you talk to them because you're so excited/desperate to make a sale? It doesn't work here either. Be authentic, build relationships, and provide relevant valuable content for people. You never know when someone might step forward.
Get Traffic NOW!
PPC - This stands for Pay Per Click, which is exactly what you do. You run small advertisements based on groups of keyword terms, and every time someone clicks on your ad you pay. Cost per click can vary, and depends on the popularity and competition of a given keyword term. Because of the highly competitive nature of this method, you have to know what you're doing. There is a learning curve, and every single internet marketer runs at least one campaign that fails. So you have to be willing to lose a little money. However, if you can stick it out through this learning curve, the potential here is enormous. Online businesses from home can easily generate 5- and 6-figure MONTHLY incomes using this type of method, when you master it and have the resources to participate at this level.
Banner Advertising on High Traffic Websites - This is a brilliant method for people who are just starting out, but have a little money to play with. The idea is that you piggy back on the traffic that someone else's website generates. You've seen these colourful advertisements at the tops and along the sides of popular websites and blogs. You simply pay for this space, and when someone clicks on your ad they're taken to your site. The advantage here is that the person who owns the website does all the work to make sure there is always high quality traffic. They do all of the SEO and keyword updating, because they want visitors to their site. You benefit from this traffic, and pay for the opportunity to be visible to their visitors. There is very little learning curve necessary here, so if you're just starting online businesses from home, this can get you some traffic right away.
Outsourcing - Someone who wants to benefit from the residual aspects of the free methods but doesn't have the time to put in doing the work can outsource it. You can pay someone anywhere in North America, India, Russia, the UK, or anywhere in the world to research and write your articles for you, often for as little as $3-$5 per article. You own the rights, you post the articles/videos, and you get the traffic. This is another powerful way to build a business if you're short on time but have a little cash to play with.
Starting online businesses from home can be very exciting, especially when you get to this stage. You're all set up, and all you need to do is get people to your site. The advantages of the free methods are that they're FREE, and usually have a residual traffic generating effect. The paid methods will get you traffic right away, but cost money and tend not to have residual effects. Connect with your mentor, and determine what the best approach would be for you and your business. Why do so few people who start a business from home make money online? Because they don't learn how to use these methods effectively. Master them, and you'll be living the life of your dreams before you know it.
Some companies offer free online training that will teach you these marketing techniques and systems, and let you get a sense of what's involved. These trainings are high value and risk free, because they will ultimately help you in any financial freedom vehicle that you choose. Visit http://zeroexperiencerequired.com/ to learn how to connect with a mentor or to learn about other options for online businesses from home.
