Working From Home? Do This? Don't Do That

Maybe you've reached your goal and you can finally work
from home, or maybe you're just inching closer to reaching
that goal. Whatever your case, you need to know that
working from home is a lot harder than you would think.
You will be battling distractions and a lack of structure.
You will also be constantly battling time, which seems to
go three times faster when you work from home.

So, here are some Dos and Dont's to help you if and when
you are working from home.

Do: Buy a laptop.

If you don't already have a laptop, get one. It's a tax
write-off and the freedom it will give you for when and
where you can work is a must.

Don't: Build a home office unless you can really afford it.

If you have the extra cash to build a home office then go
for it. But don't borrow any money to do it. While a home
office is great and may be a goal of yours, don't borrow
money to get it done. You'll just be adding debt at a time
when you need to be building your income.

Instead just set up your office in a spare bedroom, or find
any space in your house where it's semi-private and livable
including the basement or your garage. A couple hundred
bucks can dress-up either of those places.

Do: Set a Schedule

This is especially important if you have a family at home
or anything else that might distract you.

Have a discussion with anyone else who lives with you and
let them know when you scheduled to work. Get them to agree
that they won't disturb you while you are working. Post
your hours of work on the refrigerator or in another area
where everyone will see it.

Be sure to stick to your schedule just the same as you
would if you had a boss to answer to.

Don't: Watch television

This is tempting to do - Put your laptop on your legs,
settle into your recliner, and flip on the television.
The television will distract you and make any project
you're working on take much longer than it should.

While you are working, avoid the television at all costs.

Do: Leave the house to work.

If you have too many distractions, get out of the house and
work at the local library or at a cafe. All you need is a
couple bucks for coffee and Wifi. That's it.

Also, though the idea of working from home is great, there
might be times when you feel like you are homebound and you
just need to get out.

So whenever you get the opportunity, change your venue. It
will keep things fresh and make you happier.

Don't: Work in the middle of chaos.

It's a nice idea to work in the same room where your kids
are playing or where your family/friends are hanging out.
But it just won't work, mainly because you won't work.

Be sure to always separate yourself from everyone else in
the house. If you can't do that then leave the house.

So there are three very important Dos and Dont's for you to
follow. Follow these and you are well on your way to
achieving success while you work from home.

Top 5 Tips to Maximize Your Income on EBay Auctions

EBay, the world’s #1 online auction site has provided a part-time or fulltime source of income for many households all over the world. The process of selling items to anybody in part of the world has made this a huge phenomenon. Many have found a way to sell off their unwanted items and make some money out of it and many others may have found a way to buy items for low and sell high on EBay. Before EBay, lot of these unwanted items would end up as donations to Goodwill stores or trash if they do not sell on yard sales! Now, they have a way of making some money out it.

Some of them have teamed up with wholesalers and drop shippers to create a regular income and sell same or similar items like computer, electronics or furniture etc. over and over again. So, how do you maximize your income on EBay? Short answer would be BACKEND SALES! Did you notice that when you buy a burger at Burger King, McDonald or any other fast food joint, you always hear "Would you like some fries with it?" Have you noticed that at the check out counter of your local grocery store chain, they stack up gossip magazines, TV guides, Gums, Snickers etc.? These are low priced items that sell quickly when people have to stand in long lines.

Here are five unique ideas to maximize your income:

1. Whenever you sell an item, you get the email of the customer. Create a database of these customer contacts and send an email stating that you will be sending occasional information about great deals similar products in the future. It is best to use an auto responder. There are many free sources of auto responders or you can subscribe to a paid one. Whenever you list an item on EBay for sale, send an email to this list. Remember to add this line after your signature - "PS: Please forward this email anyone you know who might be interested". Since you have a good reputation of being a very courteous and trustworthy seller, they will forward your email to their friends and relatives.

2. When you ship your item, always include a list of other similar items that you have for sale. This can get them interested in more items or they may mention it others.

3. If your product is an item that will be needed by the customer again and again (for example shipping package material), then it is good idea to contact them after a few months because the shipping material that you sent earlier would have been consumed by them and they may be looking to buy more. Offer some discounts on subsequent sales or offer free shipping. This will motivate them to buy more from you.

4. Here is a great idea that is used very effectively by many online business owners. These business owners use EBay to get a sales lead only. That’s all! For example a computer parts seller may sell over 100 memory stick for only $3.99 on EBay. All this person is trying to do is get a sales lead. Once the sale is made, they will send an email to mention about their website for future sales. Create a website for your products with a shopping cart. After you sell an item on EBay, send your buyer to your website. Buying directly from your website is profitable to you because you do not have to pay EBay fees. You can encourage the buyer to go your website by giving discount coupon and it will still work best for you because you are not paying any EBay fees.

5. Here’s another great idea for backend sales on EBay. You can sell related digital information products (eBook) along with the main item. An eBook works best here because you can offer it for cheap as there is no extra cost for additional sales and also the buyer has the satisfaction of downloading it immediately after payment is made. You can create your own eBook or buy resell rights to one or sell an affiliate product. You cannot list any other product or link on your EBay auction listing but you can in your "About Me" page. All members get to create "About Me" page. Once you create this page, a "me" icon will appear next to your username. In your "About Me" page, you can create links to your information product. Put the link to your "About Me" page in your auction listing. For example, you are selling golf items on EBay. You can create an eBook (or eBook with resell rights or affiliate eBook) about the improving your golf cut that can be sold for $7.95. In the auction ad, create a link to your "About Me" page where there is an ad for this eBook. The link to your "About me" page can read something like - "Want to improve your golf? Click here for some great tips!" This will lead the auction visitor to the "About Me" page and then to your eBook. The pricing of such digital product is very important! These are not the main item so the cost should be from $5 - 15. Remember "Would you like some fries with this?" Fries cost around $0.70 and that is why they sell quickly. Such backend sales are possible even if the visitor does not buy your main product on EBay and also you will not be paying EBay fees for the sale of the eBook!

This article provides some possible ways to increase your income on EBay. Keeping in contact with your customer is very important. People buy on EBay because of the credibility. There are thousands of new products and services website built everyday but people buy these products only from well established online stores like Amazon, Dell, and HP websites because they feel more comfortable. If not, they will buy from EBay because they get a chance to leave feedback on the seller. This is reason why new online business owners must open a business on EBay so they can also gain credibility from potential shoppers and encourage them to buy from their product website.

Web Hosting Packages for Smart Business

Web hosting packages are clearly the best way to consolidate and present information that you feel the need to make available to the Internet public. Web hosting providers offer a variety of options to host your websites for an array of personal or business needs. There are many reputable companies that provide quality web hosting packages at reasonable costs to you.

Selecting a web hosting package is one of the more important tasks needed if you expect to operate your own virtual real estate. Whether you are simply advertising your business or hope to maintain a large e-commerce with catalogs for your products; or even if you would like to post your creative talent on the Internet, you will need a company to host your website.

The Internet is an enormous collection of websites and each one is hosted on web servers all over the world. The web server (or computer) where a particular websites’ files or graphics exist is known as the web host. Web hosting clients can easily upload their websites to a shared web server. This web server is maintained by an Internet service provider to ensure a consistent and speedy connection to the Internet.

Web hosting packages are as diverse as the material that occupies them. You can acquire free web hosting packages. In reality, "free" is a misconception as there will be hidden fees somewhere. Many clichés surround the so-called "free" web hosting. "Nothing is Free" and "You Get What You Pay For" are two phrases that come to mind. However if you aren’t too concerned about the bandwidth or quality and speed of your website these free web hosting packages may accommodate your needs sufficiently.

There are many things to consider when choosing a web hosting provider. Uptime average guarantee, e-mail accounts and front page extensions will suddenly be vastly important to you. Some web hosting packages support image-only web pages. There are many considerations to weigh regarding the bandwidth that will be available. Thankfully there are also many websites to aid in your research.

Depending on what material you will be posting on the site and how many visitors or hits you will be receiving on a daily basis, your choices may vary greatly from company to company. It is also extremely important to consider whether you are more concerned about quality graphics or video streaming when researching your web hosting options. As you research, you will find the package best suited for your needs.

Crafting a Terrific Close to Your Sales Copy

Now that you have grabbed your reader's attention with your riveting headline and presented your product with great enthusiasm dispelling all possible resistance, included some killer bonuses that make your offer irresistible, it is now time to bring your sales copy to a close.

The close is as important as the beginning of the sales page. This is where the final hurdle is overcome. Therefore, it is to be crafted with great skill.

So what do you write in the close of your copy? And equally importantly, how do your put it across?

Most offers include multiple bonuses that complement the main product. To encapsulate the entire offer for your prospective buyer, summarize everything that he will be getting when he buys. The best way to do this would be by putting all bonuses and products into a table so that everything can be seen at one glance.

Next, the thing to do is to remove ALL risks for the buyer by offering a money-back guarantee. Most guarantees consist of merely a few lines giving assurance to the prospective buyer that he will get a full refund within a specified period of time. Here are two tweaks that you can make to have your guarantee really stand out.

Firstly, you should use an image of a certificate and put your guarantee wording in it. This gives your guarantee a more official and professional look.

Secondly, you can word your guarantee as a personal undertaking or agreement. In other words, instead of the usual "In the event that you are not satisfied for any reason, you are guaranteed a 100% refund...", you can word it as "Should you have any dissatisfaction at all, I promise to give you a no-questions-asked refund of every penny you have paid. All you have to do is email me...". Can you see how this makes your guarantee seem much more personal?

Also, your close should ask for your prospective buyer's action of accepting your offer. This is where your words must be very clear and specific. In fact, give your prospective buyer instructions as though he were a four year old child without treating him childishly.

You do this by giving explicit step-by-step instructions. For example, you could say, "Click the 'Order Now!' button now and you will be taken to our secure order page...".

To complement your order button, you could add some words that reflect the feelings you want your prospective buyer to have. For example, just above the order button, you could say something like, "I understand that I am getting XYZ product at the lowest price ever to skyrocket my sales. And along with that, I will also be getting ABC and DEF bonuses that will give me an unbeatable edge in my business. And if that were not enough, I will be getting a 100% 'love it or leave it' money-back guarantee...".

Lastly, you should sign off with your signature and name. One last powerful piece of copy you should include is a PS after your signature and name. Research has shown that people read PS's more than they do the main copy. Therefore, you would want to add a compelling statement in your PS such as a reminder about your guarantee or your amazing discount, etc.

These are the little tweaks that top Internet marketers use to really add more punch to their close. Now you can do it, too.

4 Essentials for Creating a Successful Paid Membership Site

For an Internet marketer, the biggest reason for setting up a paid membership site can be summed up very easily - recurring income. A small amount paid monthly by every member can quickly add up to either valuable extra income or even a full-time income if you have several membership sites and if you have a higher priced membership fee, you can quickly earn a very substantial annual income.

People will buy information that they could probably find on the Internet themselves if they had time and knew where to look, but often there is a higher perceived value when they have paid for it.

The challenge then is to find customers and then provide them with such good value that they will retain their membership month after month and hopefully also recommend your site to others because you pay them a generous affiliate fee.

There are four main criteria you need to consider to achieve this and they are:

1. Your site must be in an established membership type market.

2. You must provide excellent value content or service

3. You need to use software that will password-protect your site so that non-paying members cannot get the content for free.

4. A marketing system to attract new subscribers and retain them once they sign up.

Criteria 1 - Your Membership-Site Market

In assessing your potential membership-site market, consider both online and off-line habits. Ask yourself whether people with an interest in this subject would buy monthly magazines, belong to a club or organization about it and perhaps whether there are books on the subject on Amazon's best popular seller lists. Online, check if there are eBooks that sell well, blogs, forums or other on-line communities about this subject.

The topic must be popular enough to have many potential subscribers or you will be wasting your time. It is worth offering some free material, perhaps an ebook on your subject to see how many people have an interest it it. Another strategy to test your market is to set up a simple survey, asking what issues people have. You can offer free membership to your new site as an incentive for people to reply; the answers you receive will guide you as to what kind of concerns people have on this subject.

The information most in demand on-line is that which solves someone's immediate problem, so it is worth considering whether your content or service solves just a one-time problem or whether there could be an ongoing or related issues that you can address.

An example of a one-off problem would perhaps be a remedy for snoring and for an ongoing problem, think of new parents, who have many worries and sleepless nights when their baby cries, perhaps in the middle of the night and there is no-one they can ask for advice. A membership site that contains suggested solutions for the numerous problems new parents face would be a valuable resource for them.

Criteria 2 - Quality Content

The four main types of content are: written, audio, video and web-based software solutions. Naturally, the media type you use will depend on your site topic as some will be more relevant that others. Most sites will include a significant percentage of written material as this is still the primary method of sharing information on the Internet, but audio recordings are increasing popular because people can download them and listen when they are walking, driving, exercising or away from their computer for any other reason.

Video content is preferred when the information you are providing is instructional; "how-to" in pictures or a video can make a process very easy to understand compared with following a written list of instructions.

Another situation where pictures are helpful is showing symptoms of something. For example, for the new parent site mentioned above, there could be photos of the types of spots or rashes a small child might have on their body if they have caught any of the various common childhood complaints such as measles, chickenpox or have been bitten by an insect.

There are many sources of good content apart from writing your own if you are qualified to do so. Your own material is obviously the cheapest, but will take the longest to prepare and you need to know enough about your topic to keep providing fresh material on a regular basis.

Use other people's material by utilizing royalty free articles from article directories such as ezinearticles.com and free content sites, free to use videos from YouTube, metacafe.com or ehow.com or good quality PLR (private label rights).

Outsourcing is another option that will be less time-consuming although you will have costs for the ghost-writer or freelancer you contract to produce your work. Apart from the well-known elance.com & rentacoder.com, there are hundreds of other sources as a simple web search on "outsourcing" will reveal. If you plan to outsource on a regular basis, it is worth the time and effort to find a freelancer and develop a relationship with them, rather than going through a ghost-writing service provider.

Interviews with experts are something you can do yourself with basic equipment. Prepare a list of open-ended questions before the interview and send a copy to the person you will be interviewing two or three days beforehand. Any sooner and they might forget about it and any later doesn't give them time to prepare.

The following are some suggestions for interview questions that will give an expert the opportunity to give you excellent material for your membership site:
1. What is so good about .........?
2. How did you get involved in .........?
3. What do you consider the top 3 things someone should know about ......?
4. What would you suggest would be the best way to get started?
5. How long would it take to be proficient at ..........?

An hour is a good length for a value interview but you may want to go longer and edit the script later. This is easily done even with a free audio editor such as audacity.

Criteria 3 - membership site software to protect your subscriber's investment and save you time

If you can, invest in a specialized memberships-site software package or script. There are quite a number of good choices of varying prices, for example Membergate, Memberspeed, & Wordpress plugins like Wordpress Wishlist, Digital Access Pass (DAP), YourMember & aMember. The advantages of using one of these is that so many of the member functions are done automatically, for example:

1. Membership levels
2. Membership types
3. RSS Feed encryption so that non-paying members cannot access your content through the RSS feed
4. Sequential delivery so that someone cannot sign up and download all the material & then unsubscribe - the longer a person is a member, the more content they have access to
5. Payment gateways - preferably more than just Paypal
6. Training and Support
7. A good strong guarantee

Criteria 4 - Strategies for Recruiting & retaining members

1. Instead of focusing on trying to sell memberships, focus on how how one particular article of your content can solve a specific problem a person might have so that you are providing a solution to that problem and also giving one month's membership to the site for free.

2. Use free advertising by writing & submitting articles & reports, posting on blogs & forums, make squidoo lenses, hubs & other web pages.

3. Buy Pay per Click advertising and banner ads etc

4. List your membership site on Clickbank, Paydotcom etc

5. Email your list & if you don't have one, form a joint venture partnership with someone who does & pay them a generous affiliate commission.

There are many other marketing tactics that have been written about at great length and can be found in a web search.

In summary, if you can address the four main criteria of using an established membership type market, providing premium value content, using appropriate membership software and attracting subscribers, a paid membership site can become a very profitable business model.

Five Obstacles To Achieving Success In Internet Business

A lot have been said and written about the obstacles to achieving all round success in Internet Business but this article is to submit additional five obstacles to the ones that had already been proferred by other authors.

A. Get Rich Quickly Syndrome
The major obstacle is the mad rush to get rich quickly without recourse to patience. Whatever business you find yourself requires hard work, capital and patience. No matter the promises made by an Internet venture, one still need to come on board with capital and time you can invest. But most people believe this money is there already to be collected with ease.
This is wrong, Internet Business is something that needs enough time and efforts to set in motion and once it starts nobody can stop it! Rome they say was not built in a day.

B. Inadequate Experience
Another obstacle is that most Internet business men and women do not have the requisite experience to successfully run an Internet business. Experience they say is the best teacher. Your ability to use a computer/laptop and browse the internet do not necessarily make you a guru in internet business.
Regardless of internet business experience you may have possessed before venturing into it, you still need to do alot of research on the business and carry out extensive plan. Above all, you need to be mentored by an expert in internet business to succeed in the business.

C. Inadequate Working Materials
No reasonable person goes to the farm without the needed working tools like cutlas, hoe, shovel etc to work when you get there. This is one of the obstacles to achieving success in internet business because alot of people enter into the business without the necessary tools. A would be internet business man or woman needs to equip himself or herself with a very good computer/laptop, internet connection and electricity supply. In the case of developing countries like Nigeria where the supply of electricity is epileptic, you need a good electricity generating set as a back-up in case of power failure. So these working tools are very critical to achieving success in internet business.

D. Information Overload
The Internet is the cheapest source of information and because of this, people send different kind of information to your mail bordering on internet business. The volume of information sent is so much that you may become confused and frusstrated even to the point of abandoning genuine ones that would have been of help to you. The best way to get quality information that would be relevant to you is to search reputable and well tested Forums relevant to your line of business instead of going through heaps of irrelevant information.

E. Prevalence of Fraudulent Internet People
The Internet is a breeding ground for Internet Fraudsters of different sizes and shapes. These set of people have succeeded in duping alot of people of their hard earned living thereby frusrating them out of internet business. The best approach to solving this problem is to stop believing everything you are told in the internet. Infact, skeptism should be your watchword. Seek expert advise from mentors on internet issues and above all run away from people that promised to make you become multi-millionaire overnight, they are fraudulent people.

So as stated on the opening paragraph, alot had already been said and written about this topic and that this one is additional five obstacles to achieving success in internet business that have not been said or written before.

Integrate Twitter With Your Word Press Blog

Twitter is a micro blogging platform that has caught the attention of the main stream media. You share your thoughts, insights, knowledge, tips, and interesting article sources using 140 characters or less with your followers in Twitter.

It is not a marketing platform but you can effectively use it to establish your brand and promote your products and services indirectly.

If you are planning to spam your Twitter followers with your blog post URLs and affiliate links, you will not go anywhere. Your followers will un-follow you quickly. You will not get new followers.

Twitter is like any other social media site. If you share information and insights about your niche by filtering them from hundreds of blog posts published every day, you will provide value to your followers.

If you find valuable information in your niche, share them with your followers and their number will increase.

You can also use Twitter to post latest news, hot trends in your niche, links to funny pictures, humorous video links, and other interesting things.

You have to post almost every day, preferably couple of times a day, to keep the number of followers growing rapidly.

If you are using WordPress blog platform for your blog, there are few tools you can use to automate your Twitter activities. These tools will help you use Twitter for promoting your brand.

First, you need to integrate the Twitter feed into your blog and encourage your blog readers to tweet your blog posts in their accounts.

Use TweetThis WordPress plug-in to encourage your visitors to tweet your blog post. TweetThis adds a Twitter link in every blog post you create. If needed, this plug-in will also shorten your blog post URL to fit the 140-character limit.

WPTwitp-ID plug-in adds a Twitter field to your WordPress blog comment form. When users posts comments, they can enter their Twitter user ids and the plug-in will create links to follow them in Twitter. You will be providing a service to increase the number of Twitter followers of people who leave comments in your blog.

Another WordPress plug-in called Twitter Tools integrates your blog with Twitter by pulling all your tweets into the side bar of your blog. You can also post new tweets from inside your WordPress blog.

TweetMeme Button helps retweet your post through out the Tweeter network. It also shows a count of how many times your blog post has been retweeted.

Tweeter Updater tool will send a Twitter status update to your account when you publish a post in WordPress.

You can find the web sites for these WordPress plug-ins by doing a search in Google. If you're not using Twiteer as a brand building platform, you should sign up for a Twiteer account immediately.

Five Obstacles To Achieving Success In Internet Business

A lot have been said and written about the obstacles to achieving all round success in Internet Business but this article is to submit additional five obstacles to the ones that had already been proferred by other authors.

A. Get Rich Quickly Syndrome
The major obstacle is the mad rush to get rich quickly without recourse to patience. Whatever business you find yourself requires hard work, capital and patience. No matter the promises made by an Internet venture, one still need to come on board with capital and time you can invest. But most people believe this money is there already to be collected with ease.
This is wrong, Internet Business is something that needs enough time and efforts to set in motion and once it starts nobody can stop it! Rome they say was not built in a day.

B. Inadequate Experience
Another obstacle is that most Internet business men and women do not have the requisite experience to successfully run an Internet business. Experience they say is the best teacher. Your ability to use a computer/laptop and browse the internet do not necessarily make you a guru in internet business.
Regardless of internet business experience you may have possessed before venturing into it, you still need to do alot of research on the business and carry out extensive plan. Above all, you need to be mentored by an expert in internet business to succeed in the business.

C. Inadequate Working Materials
No reasonable person goes to the farm without the needed working tools like cutlas, hoe, shovel etc to work when you get there. This is one of the obstacles to achieving success in internet business because alot of people enter into the business without the necessary tools. A would be internet business man or woman needs to equip himself or herself with a very good computer/laptop, internet connection and electricity supply. In the case of developing countries like Nigeria where the supply of electricity is epileptic, you need a good electricity generating set as a back-up in case of power failure. So these working tools are very critical to achieving success in internet business.

D. Information Overload
The Internet is the cheapest source of information and because of this, people send different kind of information to your mail bordering on internet business. The volume of information sent is so much that you may become confused and frusstrated even to the point of abandoning genuine ones that would have been of help to you. The best way to get quality information that would be relevant to you is to search reputable and well tested Forums relevant to your line of business instead of going through heaps of irrelevant information.

E. Prevalence of Fraudulent Internet People
The Internet is a breeding ground for Internet Fraudsters of different sizes and shapes. These set of people have succeeded in duping alot of people of their hard earned living thereby frusrating them out of internet business. The best approach to solving this problem is to stop believing everything you are told in the internet. Infact, skeptism should be your watchword. Seek expert advise from mentors on internet issues and above all run away from people that promised to make you become multi-millionaire overnight, they are fraudulent people.

So as stated on the opening paragraph, alot had already been said and written about this topic and that this one is additional five obstacles to achieving success in internet business that have not been said or written before.

Positivity in Business and Life

When life hands you something that you don't naturally agree with, or when you seem to be having all sorts of problems, it can seem all too easy to get down about it and to get upset and negative. However, there are many reasons that you should always attempt to be as positive as you can – whether you are dealing with the stresses of family, of your job, or of your life in general. Being positive is going to help you make sure that you never need to worry about anything else.

There are always times where it seems like it is tough to look on the bright side of things. It can be that you have too little time on your hands and too much to get done, or that you have stresses that you simply cannot combat no matter where you go. However, usually, with some practice, you can learn to see the positives in these things as well, and you can learn to train yourself to always look on the positive side.

The first step to staying positive is to be able to step back from the issues at hand and to learn how to look at everything as a big picture. This is very important because it means that you are going to be able to look at everything put together as a whole, and you won't need to worry about all of the small details. As you begin to pull away and look at the big picture, you are going to see the positives that are there – you might have very well behaved children generally, who are very smart and strong – and suddenly the spilled soda on the floor doesn't seem so bad. You might have a great career with a boss that you respect, and suddenly the issue with one project doesn't seem as important or as huge as before. If you can learn to pull yourself away and look at the big picture, chances are good that you will learn how to start to look more positively at your entire life.

Studies have shown that when you are able to focus on the positive, you are going to be able to attract even more positive energy to yourself. People who are more positive are more attractive, more comfortable with themselves, and are in better spirits – and these things attract only good things and opportunities as well. Therefore, the more positive that you can be about the world in general, and about your life, the more positive aspects you will be able to attract to yourself.

Whether you are dealing with a business, your home life, or with anything else that might be going on with you, you are going to find that there are lots of great things for you to consider about each of the parts of your life. And, the more that you focus on these positive and great aspects, the better you are going to feel about your life in general.