Internet Home Business Ideas Blog

Internet Business Newsletter June 2009

2009-06-30T22:58:00.003+01:00

I've just published my Internet Business Newsletter for June 2009.

In this issue I talk about the 7 steps that you need to take to set up your own website.

There is also a free EBook about article marketing - an essential activity for anyone with their own website.

If you have any questions feel free to post a comment below.

Niche Power Group Trial - Frequently Asked Questions

2009-06-24T21:29:00.005+01:00

A couple of days ago I made a post about the new 1 week trial offer for $4.95 over at the Niche Power Group. I have received a lot of questions about this, many of them similar, so I thought it would be worth writing a few answers down here for the benefit of anyone else who has similar questions :-)

Q. How much is the Niche Power Group after the 1 week trial is up?

A. After the trial is over, the Niche Power Group costs $29.95 per month. There are also savings available if you sign up for a 3 month or a 1 year subscription.

Q. What if the Niche Power Group is not for me?

A. No problem, just let us know by raising a ticket on our helpdesk or emailing us. You can cancel your subscription at any point during the trial or after the trial and you will not be billed again. We don't make you jump through hoops to cancel and we don't ask questions.

Q. What exactly do I get for my $4.95?

The main benefit is access to 5 experienced internet marketing coaches via a private online forum. We can assist you by answering all your questions and helping you to make money online. A lot of our members were struggling for years before they joined us and have started making money within a few weeks of joining.

You will also get a step by step action plan explaining how to start your own profitable niche website, hours of training videos, hundreds of dollars worth of bonus ebooks & software, niche marketing checklists, niche downloads, free WordPress installation & big discounts on websites, products and phone coaching.

Q. Can you help me build a website?

Yes! We can install WordPress for you free of charge. This will allow you to build your site without the need for any fancy technical knowledge! Alternatively we have a wide range of ready made niche affiliate sites. You can purchase these sites at a 70% discount - that's less than $30 for a fully functional site, including free installation by our experienced Webmaster.

Q. I've been struggling to make money online for years and I've spent lots of money without making any. Can you help me?

Yes! We have lots of members who were in a similar situation to you before joining the Niche Power Group and they are now earning money from niche affiliate marketing. Many people fail online because they have nobody with experience to help them. The NPG team have over 30 years of internet marketing experience between them and we will be there to help you every step of the way.

We also teach marketing methods which are free or low cost, so you won't need to break the bank trying to promote your website.

Q. Are you real people?

We certainly are. We are Jeff Schuman (USA), Suzanne Morrison (UK), Jeff Casmer (USA), Ken Troyer (USA) and Jeffrey Ash (Germany) and when you join us we will personally welcome you inside our members forum.

You can see our mugshots below :-)

Q. Can I see some customer testimonials?

Yes - read Niche Power Group Customer Testimonials here.

If you have a question that isn't answered here feel free to leave a comment and I will be happy to answer your question.

Find out more about the Niche Power Group 1 week trial offer.

Try the Niche Power Group for just $4.95

2009-06-22T14:00:00.002+01:00

If you are struggling to make money online or setup your own website, perhaps you just need someone to give you a helping hand?

Many people fail online simply because they do not have someone experienced to help them when they get stuck, run into a technical problem or have a question.

If this sounds like you why not try online coaching?

We are running a Special $4.95 Trial of the Niche Power Group at the moment.

For less than $5 you will get:

- Online mentoring from 5 experienced coaches
- A step by step action plan
- Free WordPress installation
- Learning Center with lots of interent marketing & technical training (videos & PDFs)
- Niche Ebooks, Reports & Articles
- 70% discount on any of our Ready Made Niche WordPress Sites
- Bonus software, graphics and EBooks to keep

In case you don't know, WordPress is a state of the art, free content management system that allows you to have your own website and easily edit it without knowing any technie stuff
like HTML.

If you are struggling to succeed online and would like us to help you just click on the link below to find out more:

Niche Power Group $4.95 1 week Trial

If you have a question feel free to contact me or leave a comment below!

Multiple Streams of Residual Income - 4 Ways to do it

2009-06-03T18:00:00.003+01:00

Creating Multiple Streams of Residual Income is one of the best ways to protect yourself against failure when making money online. You can take comfort in the fact that you are not relying on one business or one website as your total source of income.

Here are a few ideas for creating multiple streams of residual income.

1. Two-Tier Affiliate Programs: With these types of programs as well as earning a commission for selling a product you will also earn a proportion of the commissions of the sales made by affiliates that you recruit.

If you enjoy networking with people two-tier affiliate marketing is a great way to create a residual income. You get paid to teach people what you are already doing successfully. You can then earn a recurring income whenever one of your affiliate marketers makes a sale.

To focus on residual income, look at affiliate programs that pay every month for just one sale. Examples of these are membership sites and web hosting.

2. Network Marketing: Join a network marketing company and get paid on the efforts of others. Creating multiple streams of residual income is a lot simpler to do in MLM than it has ever been in the past.

It is possible for you to build a multi level marketing (MLM) business without ever leaving the house. Creating a residual income in network marketing happens when you use the power of duplication and build a large network of distributors buying and selling products underneath you.

Again, if you focus on monthly subscription based products and services this will help to increase the residual part of your income.

3. Niche Affiliate Marketing: This is an excellent way to develop a residual income. You do this by creating multiple websites or blogs in different targeted niches.

You then monetize these sites with products that you earn commissions selling. A simple way of doing this is to join affiliate programs and get paid for selling other peoples' products without having to worry about inventory or payment processing.

Creating a residual income stream happens when you start to make money from your websites even when you are not actually actively marketing them.

4. Create your own Products: An example of this is writing EBooks (or getting them ghostwritten) and selling them on Clickbank.com. This is a very good way to continue to make money over and over for doing your work one time.

It is very easy to set up an affiliate program on Clickbank and they handle all the administration such as payment processing and paying affiliates. And they offer you thousands of affiliates to promote your products for you.

If you are just getting started online don't try to do everything at once. Setting up multiple streams of residual income is a good plan, but start with one stream at a time, make it work and then go on to develop another stream.

Internet Business Newsletter for May

2009-05-29T13:16:00.001+01:00

I have just published the Internet Business Newsletter for May.

This edition is all about "Newbies" and you will find:

- Feature Article - 6 Internet Marketing Newbie Mistakes
- Monthly Business Spotlight - Cash Crate
- Free Download - Beginner's Blogging EBook
- Feature Article - Is it possible to earn Money online without spending any?

You can read the Internet Business Newsletter for May here

10 Part Time Internet Business Ideas

2009-05-25T12:55:00.002+01:00

Starting a part time internet business from home is one way to to help you earn more money in the current economic climate.

If you already have a job or stay at home to look after your children you probably want to do this on a part time basis. In this article we will give an overview of 10 different part time internet business ideas!

1. Provide a service online for something you have a talent for. Web design is always needed. So is installing a blog, graphic design and search engine optimization.

There are many internet marketers who do not have time to do everything for themselves so they are keen to oursource things. It is possible to make a good income by providing these sorts of services on a part time basis.

2. Sell things on eBay. EBay is still very popular and is an excellent way of making some additional cash in your spare time. Virtually anything can be bought and sold on eBay which makes it possible for you to develop a home business of your own.

3. Start a drop in day care center. Drop-in daycare is interesting in that people do not always know in advance when they might want to do something without their kids. Making yourself available when parents need you most is a great way to make money part time from the comfort of your own home.

4. You could offer tutoring for children who need some extra help wiht their school work. You could specialize in an area that you are talented in such as English or History.

5. Create portraits for families. If you have a talent for painting there is a never ending supply of potential customers for your talents.

6. Set up a scrap booking business. Most people have pictures piled in boxes that need to be neatly organized and you can get paid doing it for them.

7. Do you like pets? Offer to walk, groom, feed, and provide companionship or other things an owner needs help with.

8. Start a resume service. There are more people job hunting at the moment than there has been for a long time and a lot of them do not know how to write a resume.

9. Become a blog writer. There are thousands of blogs online that need someone to help add content to them.

10. Start your own website in a niche that you are interested in or passionate about. Getting paid to sell other people's products in a niche you have an interest in is a great way to make extra money.

As you can see you're only limited in the types of part time internet business ideas you can come up with. If you can solve people problems by filling a need you can get paid to do it.

6 Mistakes that Internet Marketing Newbies Make

2009-05-18T17:29:00.002+01:00

An Internet newbie is an affectionate term given to a new person trying to make money on the Internet. We were all Internet newbies at one time. However successful people advance beyond that initial phase and do not continue to make the same mistakes over and over.

Here are six of the most common mistakes that newbies make online. You must get past these if you want to become a successful Internet marketer!

1. They do not spend time educating themselves. Since none of us were born Internet marketers we must learn how to become one.

The majority of internet marketing is not difficult to learn, but things do tend to progress very rapidly on the internet. Learning how to become successful, and keeping up with the changes, requires that you educate yourself on an ongoing basis.

2. They do not build a list. Having a targeted list of emails that you can follow up with is an asset that is worth taking the time to build.

Internet newbies make the mistake of not building a list and wasting valuable traffic every day. One of the best ways to become successful in internet marketing is to build a targeted list.

3. They do not get enough targeted visitors to their website. This is probably one of the most difficult things to do.

It is a competitive business we are all in and meaningful traffic is the only way to make money. Most newbies never achieve a level of traffic that will allow them to make enough money to stay in business.

4. They use the company provided website. This is true for newbies who join home business opportunities, network marketing businesses, or who become affiliate marketers.

The main problem with this is that the majority of your competitiors are using the exact same website. Plus it doesn't allow you to do things such as build a list, create review pages, pre-sell, and so on.

5. They waste time pretending they are working. Many newbies surf the Internet on a continual basis thinking they are working.

In reality they are not doing anything to move their business forward. If you expect to become successful online you must spend your time doing things that are important.

6. They do not have any focus or persistence and tend to move quickly from one online business to another. It may be tempting to jump from one business to another if your current one isn't working out, but regardless of the business most newbies will face similar problems. The problem is very rarely the Internet business, but rather the newbie themselves.

These are six mistakes that newbies make online everyday. We have all made them, but successful Internet marketers are able to move beyond these six things.

5 Ways of Increasing Blog Traffic

2009-04-30T16:52:00.004+01:00

Blogging started out as something fun that people did to keep each other informed about their day to day lives, but this is turning into big business for Internet marketers who have learned how to do it correctly.

If you want to make good money blogging you need to have regular targeted traffic.

Here are 5 Ways of Increasing Blog Traffic.

1. Do your Keyword research and target keyword phrases in your title and in the blog post itself. This can serve as search engine bait and help rank you high on a search engine for those specific keywords. The traffic that you can get from a properly targeted keyword phrase on a search engine such as Google can be astronomical.

2. Post to your blog regularly and consistently. You want to try and make people come back to your blog on a regular basis, adding content regularly is one way to do that.

3. Use social bookmarking to help with increasing your blog traffic and getting some backlinks to help your search engine ranking. At the minimum you should bookmark your blog posts into Stumbleupon, Digg and Technorati. You can also use Onlywire or Socialmarker to bookmark your post to lots of social bookmarking sites with one click of the mouse.

Bookmarking a blog article can give you traffic when you post the article bookmark, and it can give you a backlink that leads to additional traffic in the future.

4. Put your RSS subscriber feed button right up where people can find it at the top of your page. The more RSS subscribers you have the more potential traffic you can receive every time you update your blog.

Another thing you can do is make it possible for people to subscribe to your RSS feed via email so they can be notified instantly that you have made a blog update.

5. An alternative way of increaing blog traffic is viral marketing. If you make your blog exciting by adding things such as video, audio, graphics, and so on, people will tell each other about it. This can lead to an additional increase in traffic and more subscribers to your blog feed too.

Niche Marketing Research Tips

2009-02-25T16:12:00.002Z

Niche Marketing is becoming more popular as a way to make an income online. However, your success depends on how well you do your niche market research.

If you are just getting started it is very important to do some niche marketing research. You must be able to find people who have a real interest in what you are offering.

One example of this would be a 1950s vintage clothing business. You won't be able to sell vintage clothing to anyone. Imagine trying to market it to people, who are only interested in the trendiest clothes, don't you think that would be a bit hard?

Your niche is 1950's vintage clothing and in order to get your business up and earning, you need to market your products to people who are interested. That's the whole idea behind it.

If your niche is very specific you will find it a lot easier to determine who your market and potential customers are.

The question here that's up in the air now is how can you find your market? Well, niche marketing is a lot like internet marketing in general. The only real difference is the fact that with niche marketing, you need to be a bit more specific about where and who you advertise your products to.

Using the above example, one way of doing your niche marketing research would be to visit online forums or find online groups of people who have an interest in vintage clothing.

You should get involved in online forums and communities related to your niche. Spend some time trying to understand what people are looking for and participate in forums by asking and answering questions. You need to generate interest in them so presentation is key. This is the first thing that they would see so present your products in an appealing way.

It can be a lot simpler to reach your niche market online than it is offline. There are thousands of forums and online communities that people with similar hobbies or interests can join and interact with one another. On the other hand, for an offline business which is based at home, this can be a little trickier but not impossible. You can do this by finding out what groups are available in your local community. You know how some people have groups like book clubs or knitting clubs and such? Well, there would always be people whom you share similar interests with. It doesn't have to be a big group because eventually, word would spread out and when it does, you'll see a growth in your business and your clientele.

Even those who weren't interested at first can be enticed, but it is important to do your niche marketing research first.

Join the Niche Power Group to learn how you can earn a full time income from niche marketing.

How to Increase Google Page Rank

2009-02-18T21:10:00.003Z

Visit any internet marketing forum and you are bound to find at least a few discussions on Google page rank. But what exactly is Google Page Rank and what do you need to do to increase it?

Google Page Rank is a value that Google assigns to a web page based on the importance of the page. It is determined by the number of incoming links to that web page and few other factors including the page rank of the page giving the link to you.

How to you increase your Google Page Rank?

1. First of all you can increase the number of links you have pointing back to your website. This fact alone can increase your link popularity and ultimately increase your page rank. Combined with that is the fact that the more back links you have pointing back your website for more potential traffic you will get from it.

2. As well as increasing the quantity of links to your website you should also try to get your links on high quality web pages. This means getting your link on pages that are ranked as high or higher than yours. When you do this some of their page rank can be transferred to you which ultimately helps increase the page rank of your site.

There are lots of ways to increase your page rank, but the most common methods are posting in discussion forums that have a high page rank, article marketing, submitting your site to directories, commenting on blogs and distributing press releases.

It is worth noting that the page rank displayed on the Google toolbar is not up to date. Although Google is always internally updating the page rank of web pages, the toolbar page rank is only updated every few months. Be aware that just because a page has a PR0, it doesn't necessarily mean that you don't want to spend time getting your link on that page. The page rank could increase on the next toolbar update.

Finally, it is worth remembering that a good Google Page Rank on its own is not necessarily going to mean lots of traffic. You also want to ensure that you have chosen good keyword phrases and have optimized your website.

For more tips on increasing your page rank and search engine rank sign up for my Free SEO Tutorial.

Free Internet Business Ideas

2009-02-15T23:09:00.003Z

The failure rate for internet businesses is very high - some say above 95%. However, often the reason for failure is not with the business opportunity, but with the person. It takes a lot of dedication and hard work to start a successful internet business and not many people have the skills or the patience to do this.

This leads to a question of how important is the Internet based business that you join to your success? I would say that it is not as important to your success as you might think. Therefore why not start a free Internet business as opposed to shelling out money to get started?

Examples of free internet business ideas include:

Affiliate Marketing
Free Paid Surveys
Blogging
Free "Get Paid To" programs
Ebay

We all have distractions in our life and a lot of the time, working on an Internet business takes a lower priority than anything else.

If you're the type of person who is constantly starting things and never finishing them, this is another reason to try and find some free internet business ideas rather than investing a lot of money to get started.

You can find a list of my recommended Free Home Business Ideas here.

How to Create your Own Website

2009-02-06T16:09:00.004Z

Setting up your own website doesn't have to be complicated nor does it have to be expensive. It is possible to get your domain name for around $10 a year, a good host for less than $10 a month and be up and running in a few days or less.

The following steps explain to to create your own website:

(1) Register your Domain Name. Before you do this it makes sense to think about your keywords. The domain name plays a part in search engine positioning so if you are able to get a couple of your keywords within the domain name this will help you later. Learn more about choosing keywords and registering a domain name. Avoid extremely long domain names and be sure to keep it relevant to your market. If you are going to be advertisng your site offline try to pick a name that is short and easy to remember.

(2) Find a web host. There are thousands of hosting companies on the internet today, offering all sorts of packages and charging a wide range of prices. There are free hosts available but these are not recommended if you are running a business as they tend not to be as reliable and they often show ads on your website. I personally recommend Hostgator web hosting. It is very reliable and I have hosted a number of my own websites there for over three years. You can get a good hosting package with them for around $8.95 per month, going down to $4.95 per month if you sign up for multiple months.

(3) Build your Website. There are a number of options available here depending on your experience and your budget. These options include:

Building your site from scratch using HTML (advanced skill level, low cost)
Using professional graphics or a template & HTML (advanced skill level, medium cost)
Using a content management system such as Wordpress or Joomla (medium skill, low cost)
Getting your website designed professionally (low skill, high cost)

You can find more options for building your own website here.

If you need someone to coach you through all of these steps, install your website for you and teach you how to make money from it why not join the Niche Power Group...

Paid Surveys No Fee - 5 Tips to Maximise your Profits

2009-02-01T12:37:00.005Z

Are you looking for no fee paid surveys? Many companies will charge you for a list of survey opportunities but you can find a list of free paid online surveys here.

Paid Surveys with no fee are a legitimate way to earn some money in your spare time. To get the most out of these here are some tips to maximise your earnings.

1) Register with as many survey companies as possible. The number of survey invites that you receive depends on your demographics. If you only sign up for one or two survey companies the chances are that you will only qualify for a handful of surveys. You have a better chance of receiving more paid survey invites if you register with as many survey companies as you can.

(2) Create a separate email address. Creating a separate email address will help you to stay organized. This will allow you to separate your regulars email from your survey emails and you will feel less overwhelmed by emails. This means that you can just login to your separate email account whenever you want to work on filling out surveys. The best free email account to open is a Google Mail account.

(3) Use a form filler application such as Roboform to help you fill in your profiles and remember passwords. When you fill in your profile at survey sites you will usually have to complete very similar questions. You can fill in forms much more quickly by using an application like Roboform. Roboform will also remember usernames and passwords, which can be helpful if you have registered with a lot of survey companies.

(4) Fill in your profile and complete as many screener questionnaires as possible. Many survey companies will ask you to complete a profile. This will help them to match surveys to you. The more information you put in your profile, the more likely you are to get survey applications. Occassionally survey companies will email you a screener questionnaire. This is a short survey designed to determine if you fit their criteria. If you ignore these screener questionnaires you will not be invited for the survey.

(5) Be honest. Many people are tempted to lie in order to qualify for a survey that they normally wouldn't. If you do this, there is a danger of getting caught and if you are honest you may well get as many or perhaps more survey applications than you would if you lied. Companies require people of all ages and occupations

For more paid surveys no fee opportunities visit free paid online surveys.

SFI and my President's Club Interview

2009-01-28T15:08:00.003Z

If you are looking to start a free or low cost home business then SFI is a good choice. Not only is it free to join, but the site has excellent training to help you get started making money on the internet.

You can join SFI for FREE here.

I have been a member of SFI since 2004. It was the very first online business opportunity that I joined and has taught me a lot. I also receive a nice monthly check from them and I am usually listed in the Top Ten Sponsors on the SFI leader board.

Last year I became a member of the SFI Presidents Club for top sponsors and sellers. Unfortunately it doesn't come with a free cruise to Hawaii but if you are a member of SFI you can read my interview by clicking on the Leaderboard link and then clicking on the President's Club.

If you are not a member of SFI I have pasted my interview below for you to read.

___________________________________________________________

SFI President's Club Interview - Suzanne Morrison

Q) Is this your first venture into a business of your own? If not, what type of business were you involved with previously?
SFI was my very first venture into a business of my own. I joined SFI in 2004.

Q) What were your initial goals when you joined SFI? How have those goals changed since you joined?
My initial goals were to make a bit of extra income every month and eventually to earn enough to work from home full time for myself. I have now achieved both of these goals and I currently earn a full time income from home from a combination of SFI and some other online businesses.

Q) What SFI product(s) have you most concentrated on selling? Why?
I have focused on the opportunity rather than the products. When I started SFI I was looking for ways to create extra income so it made sense to me to promote this opportunity to other people who were searching for online income opportunities.

Q) Without giving way your secrets, what two marketing strategies do you feel are most effective (i.e. offline ads and flyers, pay-per-clicks, personal Website, banner ads, autoresponders, etc.)? Why?
I promote SFI primarily through my home business website and have the most success with a combination of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and autoresponders. My site has an online newsletter and I promote SFI to my subscribers both in the newsletter itself and also by promoting SFI’s $295 value online income course on my newsletter bonus page. I also promote SFI throughout this website using banners, text links, reviews and blog posts.

Q) What is the single most important step to making a sale that you would share with a new SFI affiliate?
I would encourage new affiliates to spend some time reading about SFI, going through the SFI training and learning about the SFI products before they start to promote anything. It is almost impossible to promote a product that you don’t understand so taking this extra time to get up to speed can make a big difference to your success.

Q) What technologies (i.e. cell phone, autoresponders, software, etc.) do you consider most vital for your SFI business?
The technologies that I find most vital are autoresponders and email. I always send a welcome email to my new affiliates and use email to answer all their questions. In addition to this I provide training for my affiliates using autoresponders.

Q) List the following traits in order of importance to your business: enthusiasm, persistence, knowledge, and communication skills.
I would put enthusiasm first, Without enthusiasm how can you sell something to your prospects? It is difficult to sell something that you are not enthusiastic about.

Secondly I would say persistence. A high percentage of online businesses fail. The main reason for this is that people expect instant gratification. They want to be rewarded in a few days or a few weeks with little or no effort. The people who succeed are the people who are persistent.

Thirdly I would say communication skills. You will be much more successful if you can motivate and help your team grow their own income.

Finally, knowledge is also very important but this is something that you can build on as you go along. When I started SFI I had no experience of online business, but I didn’t let this stop me.

Q) How important is following-up with new affiliates to your success?
Very important. I always contact my affiliates immediately after they have signed up to offer them my help and support. I think it is important to let your affiliates know who you are so that they can ask you questions when they need help.

Q) How do you handle rejections?
I see rejections as part of everyday business. Not everyone is going to be interested in the opportunities that you are offering so I expect rejections and don’t let them phase me.

Q) What has been your biggest motivation for making your SFI business a success?
I want to continue enjoying the freedom of being my own boss and working from home and hope never to have to go back to working for someone else.

Q) What has been your biggest obstacle in building your SFI business?
There are a large number of people who expect instant profits or who expect to achieve success with little or no effort. I try to re-educate these people and assist them, but at the end of the day people need to be willing to put in the work to reap the rewards.

Q) How does it feel to join the top movers and shakers in SFI?
It feels fantastic. I enjoyed reading the interviews from the members of the President’s Club when I joined SFI myself and I found them very motivational so I hope that my own interview can help to inspire people who are just starting with SFI.

Q) Where do you want your SFI business to be in a year from now?
I would like to continue to grow my business and my team and I would like to help more of my team members become successful themselves and become team leaders

Niche Power Group Review

2009-01-14T10:28:00.007Z

This is a review of the Niche Power Group. We are now accepting members....

The Niche Power Group is an online coaching and mentoring site formed by a group of successful internet marketing coaches who all make a full time income online.

If you are struggling to make money online or if you are just thinking about starting your own website, having a mentor can mean the difference between success and failure. I have worked full time online since 2006 and I believe that having a mentor in the early days made a big difference to my online career.

This short review of the Niche Power Group will help you to decide whether or not it is for you.

What is it?

In short, the Niche Power Group (NPG) is an online mentoring group. This means that you will have daily access to a group of experienced coaches who can answer all your questions, give you personal critiques of your website, give you advice based on their own experience, help you with technical problems, show you where you are going wrong and much more. The mentoring takes place in a private online forum, but unlike many membership sites, the owners and founders (who are also the coaches) are in the forum on a daily basis, interacting with members and assisting them.

What do I get?

As well as online coaching you will also receive:

Free installation of your website (using Wordpress, which means that you can update your own website without knowing any HTML)
A step by step Action Plan and checklists to guide you from the research stage to a profitable website
Videos to teach you how to do common webmaster tasks, market your website, research your niche, give you inspiration and much more.
Content for your site - we regularly add articles, ebooks and other products that you can use on your website
Big Discounts on products and services (including phone coaching if you need it)
Monthly bonuses and downloads

Who are the Coaches?

The coaches are Ken Troyer (founder), Suzanne Morrison (that's me), Jeff Schuman, Cynthia Minnaar and Jeff Casmer. Between us we have over 20 years experience marketing online and we all make a full time income from affiliate marketing. We live in different places around the world - -Scotland, the USA and South Africa and we all have different areas of expertise. We can help you with niche research, building your website, SEO, list building, free traffic, sales copy, conversions, Wordpress, HTML, monetizing your website, organizing your time and much more.

Why Niche?

There are so many people online these days who start a website on "how to make money" when they haven't actually made any money themselves. It can be difficult to teach people what you don't actually know yourself and the "make money"/ "home business" market is one of the most competitive markets on the internet.

The Niche part of Niche Power Group means that you can start a website in any niche that you desire. Most people start a website in something that they already enjoy, something that they are knowledgeable about or something that is of interest to them. This means that you will end up doing something that you enjoy or have a passion about and you will usually find that your niche is far less competitive than the make money niche!

How Much?

You will be surprised at how little the Niche Power Group will cost you. Most online coaches charge $100-$200 (or even more) for an hour of their time. In the Niche Power Group you will get access to 5 people on a daily basis and if you choose the yearly plan it will cost you less than $20 per month.

Is the Niche Power Group Right for me?

That depends... If you want to build your own profitable website on a subject that you enjoy and get help every step of the way. If you are willing to spare a few hours per week to work on your website... If you are open to learning new things.. then yes, the Niche Power Group is right for you.

However, if you are looking for a quick fix or overnight way to make money, or if you don't want to own your own website, then you will need to keep on searching.

How do I sign up?

Just visit the Niche Power Group to join and get instant access.

Internet Business Monthly Newsletter

2009-01-05T21:58:00.003Z

Happy New Year to all!!

I've just published my very first monthly newsletter.

You can read Issue 1 of the Internet Business Monthly Newsletter here.

You can:

learn about my recommended business opportunity of the month
download two FREE Ebooks
discover how to make sure a business is legitimate
get 5 ideas for starting an online business in 2009

If you have any comments please post them here!

5 Online Business Ideas for 2009

2008-12-26T16:44:00.002Z

Do you want to start making money online in 2009? January is a popular time to start an internet business, as everyone is making their new year's resolutions.

There are lots of different way to earn money on the internet, it is just a matter of choosing the method that suits you best. Using the Internet to start an online business of your own makes things far easier than starting from scratch in the offline world.

Here are 5 online business ideas for 2009:

1. Start your own affiliate marketing business. Affiliate Marketing allows you to receive a commission every time you sell someone elses product. Often you can receive commissions as large as 50% and it is easy to get started. You can find a product to sell in virtually any market today as there are literally millions of affiliate programs around the world.

2. Join a network marketing company and work at building a residual income. This has matured into a profitable business model and is a great way to make money online if you enjoy working with people. Building a downline distributorship is one way to create a residual income for a lifetime.

3. Niche marketing is a term that has really taken on a life of its own in the past year and will be an extremely good online business idea in 2009.

Narrowing down a broad theme into a smaller niche is a great way to make money and have fun too. This is especially true if you can find something to sell in an area that you have an interest in or a passion for.

4. Blogging is a good choice if you are good at or enjoying writing. You can also monetize your blog and make money selling advertising on it as your traffic increases.

One easy way to get started with blogging is to create your blog using Blogger.com.com for free. Blogger is a free blogging platform owned by Google and it is very easy to monetize your blog with Google Adsense and get paid every time someone clicks on an ad.

5. Selling private label rights products is a fast way to jumpstart an Internet business. One of the main benefits is that the product idea has already been thought through and created for you.

As a matter of fact most of the product is created and requires just a little bit of modification on your part to have products ready to sell. Another great thing about selling PLR products is that all the profits are yours to keep.

Visit my Home Business Ideas website for more ways to start a business in 2009.

7 Deadly Search Engine Sins - are you Commiting Any?

2008-12-18T22:07:00.005Z

Are you tired of waiting for your website to reach the top of the search engine ranks? Or are you getting far less visitors than you would like from Google? If this sounds like you, read on and find out whether you are committing any of these search engine sins!

Sin 1 – Keyword Ignorance

One of the most common mistakes that people make when building a website is to completely disregard keyword research. The result of this is that you could end up building a website around keywords that nobody actually searches on or you could build a site using the most competitive keywords on the internet and have to wait forever to see any results.

At a minimum you should pay a quick visit to the free Google Adwords Keyword tool and type in a few keyword ideas. Take a look at the results and be sure that the keywords you pick have a good number of searches per month. Also type your keywords into Google and make sure that you feel confident about beating the competition and getting your site on to the first page of results.

Sin 2 – Keyword Spamming & Hidden Text

Mentioning your keywords hundreds of times throughout your web page or making big lists of keywords with a font color that is the same as the background color is not going to help your search engine rank. Neither is adding keywords that have nothing to do with the content of your page. Search Engines are smarter than that.

Remember that you are writing primarily for your visitors, not the search engines. You do want to mention your keywords in specific places such as the TITLE tag, H1 tag, alt text and throughout your copy, but don’t overdo it. If it doesn’t sound right when you read it back, you have probably gone too far.

Sin 3 – Only Optimizing the Home Page

Many people will spend all their time concentrating on optimizing the home page. The home page is often the most important page on your website with the most visitors, but that doesn’t mean you should neglect the rest of your website.

Choose different keywords for each page on your website and for each blog post you make. This will allow you to “multiply” your search engine traffic. Even if you choose less popular, less competitive keywords this can have a dramatic impact on your traffic if you have lots of optimized pages on your site.

Sin 4 – Not knowing your Competition

Before you go ahead and optimize a page on your website for a particular keyword phrase you should take a look at the websites that you are competing with.
Enter your keywords into Google without the quotes and take a look at the web pages on the first two pages of results. Most people don’t go past page 2 of the results when they are searching, so you need to be able to compete with the sites on the first two pages.

Are these sites big multinational companies? Do they have high page ranks or thousands of backlinks? If so, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t compete with them, but you should at least have an understanding of where your site is in comparison to these sites and make an educated guess about whether or not you can compete with them.

Sin 5 – Bad Linking

It pays to be careful about who you link to. Linking to “bad neighborhoods” i.e. sites that have been penalized by the search engines could have a detrimental effect on your own ranking. Similarly, selling text links on your website is also looked upon as bad by the search engines.
You should also be careful about how many links you have on a single page. The Google webmaster guidelines state that you shouldn’t have more than 100 links on a single web page.

Sin 6 – Poor Navigation

Having a site with a poor navigation structure or using exclusively javascript menus could result in your website not getting fully indexed by the search engines.
Search engines can’t read javascript, so be sure that if you do have a javascript menu, supplement it with a text based menu. You should also make sure that visitors and search engines can easily find all the pages on your website. One way to do this is to generate a site map.

Sin 7 – Forgetting about Off Site Optimization

Finally, one of the things that you cannot afford to forget about is off site optimization. This means getting lots of backlinks from related, good quality websites and using your keywords and variations of your keywords in the anchor text.

Building backlinks is the best way to increase your position in the search engine ranks and you should aim to grow your backlinks steadily over time.

For more tips on search engine optimization subscribe to the Free SEO Course or download 10 Ways to Improve Your Search Engine Rank.

Review of Free Traffic Bar (FTB)

2008-12-14T11:26:00.006Z

This is a review of Free Traffic Bar.

If you are looking for low cost or free ways to get traffic to your website, read on to find out whether or not Free Traffic Bar (FTB) is a good option.

When I started testing Free Traffic Bar I didn't have high hopes as I thought it would be similar to Instant Buzz, which I had used for a few days and then uninstalled as I hated it.

However, I was pleasantly surprised.

What is Free Traffic Bar?

It is a toolbar that you can install on your web browser (e.g. internet explorer or Firefox) and it contains a search box, a menu of internet marketing tools (e.g. copyrighting, SEO, website building, lead capture etc) and a text ad that changes every time you visit a different page.

Every time you go to a new page on your web browser you earn a credit. You can then use these credits to display ads on other people's toolbars (over 30,000 members) or for banner and text ads on the Free Traffic Bar site.

There is a downline builder that includes programs such as Traffic Swarm, Home Income Team, GDI, various Clickbank products, traffic exchanges and advertising programs.

There is also a library containing a range of free resale rights products.

Is it easy to install?

I found the installation very simple and trouble free for both IE and Firefox. Once it was installed there were no problems and although I do notice the ads from time to time it is not obtrusive. I've been running it now for 2 weeks and haven't felt the need to uninstall it like I did with Instant Buzz.

Is it easy to use?

The member center has lots of short helpful videos and an FAQ explaining how to set up ads, how to install and use the toolbar, how to exchange credits, how to use the downline builder and more. I found it very easy and straightforward to set up my ads and exchange credits.

Can I make Money from It?

Yes. If someone signs up through your own link and they go on to upgrade to a "Pro" membership or buy some ad credits you will receive 50% commission if you are a Pro member yourself.

Free members and Pro Members also earn credits on up to 10 levels of their downline. So if you don't like toolbars, then you have the option of earning credits purely from your downline.

You can also earn money through the downline builder. If you add your affiliate IDs to the downline builder and one of your downline purchases a product you will receive a commission.

How much does it cost?

Basic membership is free. So you can install the traffic bar, earn credits, create ads and refer people and earn credits from them without paying anything.

Pro membership costs $19.99 per month and you receive 15,000 credits each month.

How Good is It?

This is the part that surprised me. I am no copywriter and writing ads has never been my strong point, so I will probably see similar results to the typical person. From my testing over the period of two weeks I have seen clickthrough rates between 1% and 4.5% depending on the ad I am using.

All my ads have been related to getting signups to my list (both my home business newletter list and my SEO Email Course) and I have been receiving one or two signups per day to these lists from FTB, which isn't bad for a free traffic source.

Is there any Support?

There is a support ticket system, a forum, lots of videos and an FAQ. There is also a support phone number.

How do I sign up?

Just visit the Free Traffic Bar website and follow the instructions to create an account.

Free SEO Tools

2008-12-10T17:05:00.003Z

I've just written a brand new report called 10 Free SEO Tools.

This report is free and it introduces and explains how to use some of the best SEO tools on the web. These include:

Keyword Research Tools

Backlink Checker Tools

Social Bookmarking Tools

Visitor Analytic Tools

Rank Checker Tools

To download this report just sign up for your Free SEO Email Course.

What are the Best Online Businesses?

2008-12-08T17:22:00.003Z

Do you want to start your own business? If so, starting a business online is one of the best ways to get started due to the low startup costs and low risk. The best online businesses are run by those people who have a good understanding of their long term goals and are motivated to achieve them.

Some of the most successful businesses are run by people with degrees in business. They may have gone to school knowing they wanted to pursue business or they might have had another career field in mind that required a business background. However, many online businesses have been started by people with no business background at all, which gives the general public a good chance of starting their own successful business online.

You can learn many lessons from the creators of these online businesses. By studying how they started their business and the steps they took to increase traffic to their websites we all can benefit, and use the knowledge to grow our own online businesses.

Google, YouTube and MySpace are all good examples of successful online businesses. Each of these websites was made with the idea of servicing people. Google provides millions of users worldwide the ability to find what they are looking for on the internet.

Google has grown with the times since it started as well and has increased its user experience by constantly updating the agorithm of search and finding new sites. Additionally they have offered users other options for their internet needs such as Gmail, Google Docs, Gtalk, and Google News.

Myspace was started by one person who wanted to network with friends and family and share their life online with them. By that one person sharing their idea and website with people his own idea he has been able to inspire millions to share their lives online as well. Everyone seems to be connected in their extended network, and people can share as much or as little of themselves with their friends and family online. From pictures to videos to their favorite songs, Myspace gives people individuality in the online world.

Another one of the best online businesses is Youtube. The founders of YouTube created this site to provide the ability for visitors from all around the world to easily share their favorite videos. People could easily make a video and upload it to share with millions. You could show some of your individuality, you could teach others, or even promote your website.

Find more about starting an online business and learn how to build your own website.

Profitable Home Business Ideas

2008-11-28T15:03:00.003Z

There are many ways to start a home based business today and the internet has made it easier, cheaper and more achievable. However, like any business, you need to make sure your business ideas are profitable before you start spending lots of time or money on them.

You should start collecting information on the markets you are interested in serving before you get started. It is easy to collect information from online forums to help you. Once you have collected some research data you can then determine whether or not your ideas are profitable.

It makes sense to collect data about your potential customers as part of your research. One way to do this is by offering something for free in return. You can later use this data to advertise to the customers.

If you already have a good profitable business idea you may be able to get funding from investors or the bank to help you. You can apply online for these investors but you should have a good business plan in place. You should ensure that you do a much market research as possible and create some sort of business plan. If you need funding for your business, then doing this work up front will give you a much better chance in receiving funding from potential investors or banks.

Alternatively, how about starting an online business? most online businesses don't need much in the way of capital to get started.

If you don't have any profitable home business ideas yet visit my legitimate home business opportunities page to find some ideas that are suitable for your interests, experience and budget

It is possible to get started online with just a small amount of money to put towards the creation and hosting of your website. You will need to work very hard to have a profitable online business, but the cost of failure is much smaller than it is in the offline world.

Get a Higher Search Engine Rank with my new SEO Ebook

2008-11-15T23:53:00.002Z

Do you have your own website? Are you getting hundreds or thousands of daily visitors from the search engines.

If not, then I have just published an Ebook that may be for you.

3 Steps to Search Engine Success is a step by step, easy to understand guide to improving your search engine rank and driving your website to the top of the search engine results. Follow the intstructions in this ebook and you will be on your way to receiving hundreds of targeted daily visitors from the search engines.

The Ebook covers everything you need to know about SEO without going into lots of unnecessary boring details. You'll also find step by step examples and screenshots to guide you along the way.

For more details visit 3 Steps to Search Engine Success.

You may also be interested in signing up for my free seo e-course.

Ebay Auction Classified Cash Review

2008-10-29T12:34:00.002Z

I've recently finished reading Tracey Edward's Ebook Auction Classified Cash, which is all about how to make money using classified ads on Ebay.

If you are looking for a new way to get traffic to your website, build your mailing list or sell affiliate products then this may be the guide for you.

This book was especially interesting to me as I have always wanted to use Ebay to try and generate leads for my business, but being quite inexperienced with Ebay (apart from buying!), I never fully understood how to do this.

Here is a review of the Auction Classified Cash Ebook to help you decide whether or not this is something that will be beneficial for your business.

What is in the Ebook?
The main areas of the ebook are:
-Why Classified Ads?
-How to List a Classified Ad
-Types of Classified Ads that make money
- Case Studies

The book is great for Ebay novices as it explains everything you need to know about what you can and cannot do with classified ads on Ebay and there is also a step by step guide to actually creating your ad.

It also has a lot for more experienced Ebay users as Tracey explains from her own experience what the optimum time period for running an ad is, how to choose the right category for your ad, the most profitable layout for an ad and how to get more traffic to your ad - all things that will help you save money if you are listing an ad for the first time.

Case Studies
She also gives an indepth explanation of one of her own Ebay Classifieds that has a 30% conversion rate and shares with you the exact layout of her ad and how much traffic she received.

The book includes a case study of how one of her friends made $200 in a month from placing an ad for an affiliate product on Clickbank. The case study explains how he chose the product, researched the keywords for the ad and created the ad, plus you find out how many clicks that ad received and how many people bought the ebook.

How much is is?
Auction Classified Cash is a 55 page long Ebook currently priced at $29.99 and also includes some bonus classified ad templates for use on Ebay.

My Verdict:
Over all I was highly impressed with this Ebook - it covers everything you need to know without any fluff. I was able to easily use the instructions to create my first classified ad on Ebay, which is now receiving traffic and opt-ins! The case studies included all the details of real successful ads, which was really helpful.

To get your own copy of Auction Classified Cash just visit the Auction Classified Cash website.

6 Ways to Get More Traffc to Your Blog

2008-10-22T19:47:00.002+01:00

You can have the sexiest blog on the planet but if you are not getting any visitors to it, the only person that will know about it is you!

Read on to find out six ways to increase the traffic to your blog.

1. Search engines can deliver a tremendous amount of traffic to your blog if they want to. The key is using well researched keywords in every post so that you can achieve a high ranking that people will see when they search.

As your blog articles settle in with a search engine it is possible to stay on page one for a targeted keyword phrase for years. Doing this will give you a great potential for future traffic.

2. Social bookmarking can bring you traffic as well as serve as search engine bait. Bookmarking your blog posts to Digg, Stumbleupon, Propeller, and others is a great way to get traffic to your blog.

3. Getting RSS subscribers is a fantastic way to keep people current whenever you update your blog content. This can bring people back to your blog and is a very good alternative to email marketing for list building as well.

4. Post comments on other people's blogs and include a link back to your blog. This will give you a backlink which will help your search engine ranking, as well as give you traffic from the readers of the other blog.

5. Do article marketing and submit your articles to the top directories online. In your resource box include a link to your blog. As you build up lots of articles online you will continue to get traffic from these links for years to come.

6. You can also use social media such as posting in online forums, creating videos, social networking and podcasting to get more traffic to your blog.

In summary these were 6 ways to get traffic to your blog. The important thing is to post interesting, unique or unusual content and really make people want to come back to your blog again and again.