Short But Yet Useful Online Business Articles

Informative websites make more money

Building a professional website is a difficult task. If you have the money, hire a web designer to do it for you. If you don't have the money you better have the time. Designing and building a website is a time consuming task. This way or the other, if you are planning to sell anything online, you better build an informative website. An informative website is a website that actually "tells" a prospective buyer why exactly he should buy from you online.

 How can you do that?

One of the biggest problems prospective buyers face online is the inability to "hold", "feel", "Taste" or "smell" the products you are selling. This is where you come in. If you want to sell anything online you must be able to give your customers as much details as you can. You don't have to overload them with details – that will make them run away. You should remember that the average internet surfer leaves a website after less than a minute if he is asked to put some effort i.e. read a lot of stuff. Nobody has patience online.  

If you want to deliver your website visitors the real sense of your products you must be creative. Do not settle for text descriptions only. To deliver a full sense of your products you can also place some pictures of it on your website. Make sure that the pictures you use are good once. You should also make sure that the pictures you place are not too "heavy" – Do remember that the bigger the picture files are the slower your website loads. Slow websites tend to drive away prospective buyers. Another way to do so is by placing a short video on your site about the product you are selling. Personally I don't like those videos which start automatically when I enter a website. I do like having the option to start the videos myself. 

Finally I suggest combining those three ways (Text, Pictures and Videos) and keeping your descriptions as short as you can. A very good example is eBay power sellers. If you know your way around eBay you have probably noticed that most power sellers use Text and Pictures/Videos descriptions. Those who settle for Text only descriptions mostly will not make it to the power seller title.

Yours,

Ofer Solomonov

The Joint Venture adventure 

Many webmasters wonder what else can be done in order to generate more sales. Advertising your business online can be very expensive. If the conversion rate is low you can lose a lot of money. Everybody is constantly looking for cheap ways to expose their online business.  

Although there are many sites out there that promise you just about anything, most of them are doing a poor job promoting other people sites and some of them can even harm your websites' reputation.

However there are some solutions that can work well for you. One of those is the Joint Venture solution. Making money online is not that easy but a joint venture can help you turn your site into a little empire. For instance, Lets say that you are selling shoe laces in your websites' shoe laces store. Your prices are unbeatable and nobody can compete with your brand name merchandize. Actually you are the king of the online shoe laces stores niche. Sad enough for you almost no one knows it but you and that is because there are not many visitors to your website.

 Now lets say that Joe from Ohio runs an online sport shoes store. Joe is doing very well but he keeps getting requests from his customers for shoe laces which he doesn't sell at all. Knowing this you contact Joe and offer him a Joint Venture. Joe will place a link on his home page to your online shoe laces store and in return you will place a link to Joes' online sports shoes store. Everybody is happy now. Joes' customers have to look no further for shoe laces and your customers get to know Joes' online sports shoe store. Each of you can even offer his customers discount coupons and so to increase customers traffic between both sites. Joe is not worried about you "stealing" his customers and you are not worried either. There are no worries at all because you are not competing with each other.

It sounds wonderful, isn't it?

It sure is. However finding the right Joint Venture partner or partners is not that easy and can take some time. This way or the other it is worth trying.

Yours,

Ofer Solomonov

Make money adding new content 

There are all kinds of websites on the internet. Have you ever wondered how come you came across a specific site? Most people visit websites they have found using the search engines services. As you probably know by now, search engines love content. Websites that are full of content help search engines to display relevant search results for their users. 

In order to be noticed by search engines you should post fresh and relevant content on your website. Writing new content is not such a difficult task. However I do know some webmasters that do not have the time to write new content for their websites.

 Some of them are using some kind of RSS software which automatically adds content to their web pages. Although it seems to be the perfect solution for lazy webmasters it is not.  

Most search engines hate duplicated content. With the RSS technology you can be sure that the content added to your website was added to other websites as well. Duplicated content can hurt your website chances to get to the top search results. Another solution is to let professional content writers write for your website. While RSS technology is mostly free of charge, hiring a professional content writer can be expensive. A popular way of adding fresh content to a website is running a blog and allowing the website visitors post comments. This is a very effective method but it requires you to spend a lot of time updating and monitoring your blog.    

My motto is that if you want something to be done well you should do it yourself!  

Yours,

Ofer Solomonov

Timing is crucial for your business

Many people dream about making money online but only a few succeed. The most important thing in any business whether it is an online business or not, is the volume of prospective customers who visit it. The most common way to drive a steady stream of visitors to your website is online advertising. However online advertising can cost you a lot of money. This is why when you choose to advertise your business online you should be very carful about the way you advertise it. 

One of the main problems with online advertising is that it might cause unwanted visitors to visit your site. One of my friends is running an online business selling DVD movies. Soon after establishing his website he started advertising it online. The online advertising went very well and visitors kept on coming. Actually he had a high volume of visitors to his website. Advertising expenses were high as well.

Amazingly most of the visitors to my friends' website bought nothing at all. He tried modifying his website adding some trailers and movie reviews but nothing really helped. Then he tried to modify his online advertising. He did well and a higher volume of visitors visited his website. Naturally, Advertising costs went up as well. Regardless of his efforts his website generated almost no sales at all. 

My friend did not give up and went to seek some professional help. One of the first things he was asked to check was the days and hours when most traffic was driven to his site. He found out that most of the traffic came from the US east coast during the morning and noon hours. Almost no traffic was driven during east coasts' evening and night hours.  

He understood that most of his website visitors were…kids! No wonder almost no one bought his DVDs… 

Yours,

Ofer Solomonov

What sells best? 

When was the last time you searched for online guides about 'how to make money online'? Did you find any? I bet you did. Actually when you 'Google' the phrase 'Make money online' you get more than 29 million search results. You did not have the time to visit all of those websites, did you? Neither did I.

If you read any online guides about best ways of making money online you are probably as confused as I am. The thing is nobody really knows the perfect formula of how to make money online. Guess what – If anybody does know the big secret of how to run a successful online business he is not going to share it with you or me…

So, what works and what doesn't work?

Frankly I don't know and if you do please drop me an email. Now lets' be serious for a moment. After several years of trial and error I have come to the conclusion that people love buying products that are not too expansive (A shocking conclusion that is, don't you think…) and better yet – People hate to wait for too long until they get what they purchased. Remembering those two basic rules I looked for cheap products that one can sell and that people are able to get quickly.

Soon enough I found out that software products as well as information products such as eBooks are exactly what I was looking for. Most of those products are not expansive and are downloadable within seconds after payment is sent.

Up until today this works for me well. It doesn’t necessary means that it will work the same for you. Trial and error rule, remember?

Yours,

Ofer Solomonov

You'll be amazed at how simple it is to do siphon off money from the internet, straight into your own pocket in no time flat...even if you don’t have an ounce of business experience. Read More...

Choose your niche carefully 

So you have finally decided to open an online business – now what? If you have any specialty it is highly recommended using it running your online business. If you do not have any specialty things can be a bit more complicated. Before spending any money on an online business I suggest you choose your line of business well and gain some specialty.

Others believe that one should look for uncommon business niches. This way one can enjoy less competition and potentially make much more money online. Although the advantages of uncommon business niches are clear there are also some disadvantages. As you can probably guess, if such a business niche is a rare one most likely that there are not too many prospective customers out there which means that the 'big cake' is not too big as it seems. This way or the other you should choose your niche carefully.

Yours,

Ofer Solomonov

No pain no gain… 

All you have to do in order to drive traffic to your site is to build a cool website and fill it with interesting content, right? Wrong!

 If you are planning on running an online business you must be ready to invest some real money. A successful webmaster is one who knows how to locate prospective customers and make them visit his website. Building a fancy website and waiting for those visitors to come is what I call a Naïve behavior. The truth is that if you are looking for prospective customers you must invest some money advertising your website.

There are many online advertising programs and services out there. You should look for those which are best for you. Do not be fooled by so called advertising programs that promise to drive millions of unique visitors to your site. Simply say – They are lying. Most of them use certain scripts that generate fake 'hits' to your website. Avoid their 'good services' at all costs. 

If you are serious about running your online business you should consider  advertise it using the services of the big search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and so. In order to help you drive laser targeted traffic to your site those search engines give you very useful tools to do so. I.e. they let you choose Keywords and Phrases, The geographic region of your visitors, age and gender of your visitors and so on. The most common and affective way of online advertising is Text Ads. As you probably know, there are other ways as well such as Banners, Video Ads, Audio Ads and more. 

Yours,

Ofer Solomonov

Content & Keywords...

I know a guy that has a fantastic website. He built his website using all kinds of scripts such as JavaScript, Flash based scripts and more. The only problem is that almost nobody visited his site. A major problem that is, don't you think?

He became very frustrated and even thought of closing his online business. Lucky for him he came across an online business guide where he found what was missing in his site.

What was missing is some good content. The scripts he used in his site made the site look awesome but there was not much content. After filling his website with some content he waited for several weeks in order to let the big search engines 'spiders' find that content. Change was not immediate. There was a slight increase in the number of visitors to his site. Obviously he was looking for more visitors.

After figuring out that random content is not going to do the job he placed some targeted content on his site. The targeted content contained some keywords and phrases that are relevant to his online shoe store such as 'running shoes' and so (Did I mention he has an online shoe store?).  A few weeks later he was amazed. His online sales went up. Up until today he thanks God for not closing his online store!

Yours,

Ofer Solomonov

A new breakthrough secret is all you now need in order to get your Google AdWords pay-per-clicks FREE and make money online! Read More...

Competition – is it good or bad?

Any serious entrepreneur knows that before he invests his money in a new business he must perform a market research. After all it is better to avoid unnecessary risks instead of losing a lot of money. The first thing one should check before kick-starting an online business is his competitors. Too many competitors around does not always mean trouble. However if there are way too many of them you should be very cautious before spending your money opening a new online business.

This way or the other it is always good to get to know your competitors. You can learn a lot from them about how you should run your business. Investigate their website. See what exactly they are selling and how do they sell it. The big search engines such as Google and Yahoo can help you do just that. Run a search for a common word or term that is related to the goods that you are planning to sell online and then take a look at the top ten results. As you can guess those websites that have made it to the top are probably doing something right. Explore these websites in order to learn some more tips and tricks that one day might help you get to the top ten search results. Do remember that the content, Pictures, algorithm, source code, scripts and just about anything else are protected by copyright laws. Do not copy anything from any website unless you get a written permission to do so from the websites' owner. 

After performing a market research you should analyze the data you gathered. Try to find your competitors weak spots. Those weak spots are your best chance to gain an advantage over your competitors. For example, if everybody else sell the same shoes at about the same price it is not always wise to put a much lower price tag on those shoes. People are getting suspicious if you sell something for a price that is way below your competitors (Unless you sell it on eBay…). There are better ways to gain advantage such as lowering the shipping and handling costs. If everybody else is asking for a $20 for shipping and handling check and see if you can offer a lower fee. Trust me - most people will be more than thankful!

Yours,

Ofer Solomonov

Get to know your visitors 

Many webmasters fail to see why their sales are far below expectations. Any one who tries to run or even runs an online business must understand that a 'sexy' website does not necessary sells. If your website does not generate the sales you expect it to you should consider modifying it. 

But first thing first. Before modifying your website I recommend tracking your site visitors behavior. There are excellent tools that can help you do just that. Better yet, using some of those tools is completely free!

I strongly suggest checking out Googles' free webmasters tools. With Googles' webmaster tools the task of tracking your visitors behavior becomes easy. Google provides you with very important information about your visitors such as the most clickable areas on each and every page, the average time your visitors spend viewing your site, which page of your website is the most visited page, top search queries and more. 

Tracking your website visitors is not enough. Next thing you should do is modifying your website step by step according to their behavior. Start by implementing small changes to your site and then wait for some time (days or weeks) and track your visitors behavior once again. Perform this process over and over again up until you get the desired results (more sales…).

Yours,

Ofer Solomonov

Online Business - Reputation counts!

Building a commercial website is one thing. Attracting prospective buyers is another. There are many ways to attract visitors to your site such as online advertising, traditional advertising and more. However the fact that you are able to increase traffic to your website is not enough. It is very hard to convince your visitors to become buyers. One of the best ways to do so is maintaining a good reputation. You must think of your online business as a real world shop (or office). Listen to your visitors treat then well and do your best to earn their trust. Avoid confronting with your visitors at all costs – After all do remember that the customer is always right. Always.

Keep in mind that a happy customer is a returning customer. A happy customer is also one that will recommend you and might even post a positive review about your site, products and services. Whenever I intend to buy something online I perform a small research about the seller and his website. If the reputation of the seller is good enough I will most likely buy the products I'm interested in form him.

How do I perform my little research?

Yours,

Ofer Solomonov

The Google Adventure

Anybody knows Google. Google has created the most sophisticated Search Engine. It is very simple to use. Google has also created a fantastic and high targeted Advertising service called Google Adword.

Google Adword lets advertisers all over the world create Text Ads, Banners, Video Ads and more. Within minutes of creating the desired Ad

Google Adword publishes the Ad on its huge global network.

Every time someone clicks on one of the Ads Google gets paid. This genius advertising system makes Google a lot of money. Google is always looking for ways to expand its advertising network. For this to happen Google is willing to share its profits with Webmasters all over the world.

Websites owners are invited by Google to place Google AdSense Ads on their websites. Google even generates the necessary code so one doesn't have to have any programming skills. Google Adsense is Google's revenue share program. Each and every time a visitor to one of those websites clicks on such an Ad Google pays the website owner. Websites that attract many visitors are able to make a lot of money by placing Google AdSense Ads.

Yours,

Ofer Solomonov

Kick-Start your very own Online Business

So, you finally have decided to start your very own Online Business. Now what?

There are many types of Money Making programs online out there. Some of those programs teach you how to sell your own products or services. Other programs teach you how you can Make Money Online selling nothing at all (This is absolutely the best way to generate zero profits and heavy losses…) or better yet – selling other peoples products.

This way or the other the main thing to consider is advertising costs. Advertising your online business can cost you a lot of money. Nobody is going to notice your presence online unless you buy some advertising space from one of the big search engines. One of the most effective advertising programs online is Google AdWords. Business owners all over the world use it for years now. All one has to do is select the type of advertisement that fits his needs such as text ads, banners and even video ads. The most common advertising method is the Pay Per Click advertising. This way whenever someone clicks on one of Google AdWords ads Google gets paid. A genius idea don't you think?

So how can you cut your advertising costs?

There are many money making programs online that teach you how to sell your products or other peoples products without owning a website. In my opinion this is a very wrong conception. If you are serious about making money online you must run your very own website. Running your own website lets you generate several streams of income. For instance you can place third party advertisements on your website. That's not all. If your website is built and maintained well you will get extra free visitors traffic generated by other resources such as other websites linking to yours and even search engines. By now I believe you get the big picture.

Yours,

Ofer Solomonov

Building your online business 

The idea of running your very own online business is appealing. There are many way for you to kick-start your Internet based business. You can sell your products or other people products. Believe it or not some people sell absolutely nothing at all and still make money online.

If you don't have your own products to sell don't give up. There are many affiliate networks out there that let you sell other peoples products. However, choosing the right products to sell is crucial. If too many people promote the very same product you'll probably end up getting a small piece of the big pie…

Yours,

Ofer Solomonov

A quick note about promoting your online business

Do you remember the good old days of the dot com bubble when everyone who had a dot com website was the 'king of the hill'? Who doesn't. Unfortunately those days are over now.

Now days owning a dot com domain and running a website doesn't guarantee anything anymore. If you want your online business to become successful you should become a marketing expert.

Marketing your online business is not as easy as it used to be. Most websites are not listed on the top ten search results on the big search engines. The competition is high. Actually it is much higher then you think it is when it comes to common searches.

This is the reason why most webmasters are constantly looking for new ways to increase the visitors traffic volume to their websites. There are many ways to do so. Some will cost you a lot of money and some will cost you absolutely nothing. In example: advertising your website using a pay per click advertising service can be an expensive adventure while publishing articles such as this one on most cases will cost you nothing at all.

Yours,

Ofer Solomonov

Copying any of MamaDeals.com content is prohibited!

All rights reserved to Mr. Ofer Solomonov and MamaDeals.com ©