OK.  Maybe this special isn’t really everything, but it is everything I have in my Kunaki account.  Here is what you’ll get:

1. CD Containing Over 10,000 Publishers For Use With Artemis Pro And Other Article Marketing Software

2. MemoSo 2009 Simple Email List Management Software

3. CD Containing A List Of Over 10,000 Work At Home Job Seekers Including Their Name, Email and Postal Address

4. MuVar 2009 Multivariate Testing Software

5. Earn An Income By Creating Your OWN DVD (an instructional DVD created in less than two hours using the methods taught on the DVD itself)

The cost?  You have two choices between now and noon on Monday when this special expires:

Option 1: Get all of the above for $200 here:

http://www.DiegoNorte.com/special.html

Option 2: Get all of the above for free if you order a new franchise here:

http://www.DiegoNorte.com/services/Franchise/

These items retail for over $1,200.  This is something like 80% off the normal price.

Happy Halloween!

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

Another way to market your business is to use social networking sites. Squidoo, just one of many, is considered a social networking site, however from an internet marketing perspective it is vastly different from the others. One key difference is that, Squidoo lets you sell blatantly without the worry of someone shutting you down. Another unique feature of Squidoo is it an adult social networking site. Thus, making it a great place to market your business as well as interact with other home internet business owners.

Squidoo allows you to create what’s called a lens, which is basically an information portal about any topic you want. Squidoo also allows you to sign up and create as many lenses and categories as you want. You can very easily use these lenses to drive targeted traffic to your home internet business sites.

Once you have finished creating your lenses and specifically targeted to your home business niche, you then start socializing with other like minded marketers on this social networking site.

The secret to succeeding in using Squidoo is to provide information that is not only good information, but helpful information to people in your niche who are eager to receive that information. By using a good landing page you can effectively market as well as drive targeted traffic to your home

business opportunity. If you are already a respectable internet marketer then people will be more willing to buy an affiliate’s product based on your recommendation.

How To Generate Traffic Using A Squidoo Lens

1. It is vitally important to put your main targeted keyword in your lens title. This is because lenses are pages and they can therefore rank in the search engines like your legitimate home internet business home page.

2. Choose a URL for your lens with your primary keyword. Do remember this, as it will help your search engine rankings too, because that URL is what you’ll link to from other places.

3. Tag your lens with other long tail keyword. Look for the Squidoo lens creation wizard to give you the chance to do this when you first set up your lens.

4. One of the most important things you should remember is to add an RSS feed so as to make your lenses popular with search engines. There’s a Squidoo module for RSS feeds, and search engines just love that kind of unique, frequently changing content.

5. Update you lens several times a week at minimum. You don’t need to make major changes but quick and easy ones, just tweaking a little here and there and click publish. Although an RSS feed will help this, it is equally important that you also add hot new content in your lens.

6. When Squidoo masters recommend you to create many lenses, they actually meant create more specialized lenses based on long tail keywords in your niche. As you would already have a list of your keywords for your niche, you should start to dominate them. If you have a lens on work at home business, for example, you could create a more specialized lens call Work At Home Business For Retirees.

7. Link your related lenses to each other. This is a good technique as it is known to be good traffic building tip. You also build more links and more links means more visitors which ultimately gives you a higher ranking for your Squidoo lenses.

8. Use your lens like it’s your blog and link to your legitimate home internet business sites. This is such an easy yet powerful technique. Search engines love Squidoo and so links from a high-ranking lens to your work at home business site can really boost your traffic.

9. Remember that Squidoo is firstly a social networking site so get sociable by visiting other internet marketer’s lenses to give comments on their guest book. This also gets you one way links which generate traffic for you too.

10. Now, the trick to Squidoo is to not only have proper keywords in your lens, but to add many keywords to your lens. If your lenses sells a product, more traffic translate to more sales. You can check out what keywords people are typing in the search engines to arrive at your lens and easily add those keywords to your list.

11. Here is the final secret you an use. Mark your lens useful. One good way to make your lens useful is to present your information as a “how-to” lesson within your topic. This helps you build a good lens and your audience finds what they are looking for easily

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

You need a product of your own to sell or you just plain don’t have a business.

Today… if you accept this offer, I’m going to give you a very popular product to sell.  It is the product I just sold on a 24 hour special on Monday.  I know it sells well because I sell it myself.

But, first we need to make it your own product.  That’s very easy with packaging.  Here is what the product currently looks like:

As you can see, it is a CD.  Packaging is simple.  People really don’t care about the pretty picture on the front of a product like this.  They care about the contents.  They want and need that publisher list to get more traffic to their web-site.

So the CD jewel case is just blue.  There are no graphics.  It doesn’t have to be blue for your version of this product though.  You can choose any of the following colors:

White
Black
Red
Green
Blue
Purple
Yellow
Brown

You can also choose what you want the product to be called.  I didn’t use a fancy product name.  I just described what is on the CD.  It sells itself to anyone who knows the value of article marketing and owns a business with a web-site.

When you accept this offer though, you can name it anything you wish.  You don’t have to mention Artemis Pro if you don’t want.  You can call it Muzzy if you want.  You can call it “10K Publishers For Article Marketing”.  You choose.

Down at the bottom, I have my company name and URL.  You can change that too.  You can use your personal name, your company name or anything you want where it currently says “Diego Norte.”

Right below that is this URL.  You can change that too.  Put your own URL.  Put the URL to purchase another copy.

You choose all four items: case color, product name, company name, and URL.

I provide the contents (which is a very valuable list of over 10,000 publishers that can be used for article submissions to get massive traffic to any web-site).

I’m going to give you rights to sell this as your own product… which it will be.

The cost is only $300 for the next 24 hours.  It will be $1,000 after that.  You can send the $300 to paypal@diegonorte.com via PayPal any time before noon tomorrow (CST which is GMT-6).  As soon as I recieve your order, I will change the graphics on the cover to whatever you chose.  I will change the color, the product name, the company name and the URL to whatever you choose.

Then I will upload your new product to Kunaki.  Kunaki is an excellent company that replaces the need for a CD manufacturer and a merchant account.  They will accept orders for you, automatically manufacture the CD orders, and ship it to your customer.  You don’t have to do anything!  You just send potential customers to the URL they will provide you.

I will give you the user ID and password to your new Kunaki account.  You can then set the price of your new product and immediately start selling it at whatever price you chose.  It is YOUR product.  Kunaki charges $1.75 per CD to do all of the above.  They automatically fulfill all of your orders for that price and then send you a check or PayPal for the difference between $1.75 and whatever you choose to sell this product for.

This product sold extremely well for me at $100 per CD.  That was only a penny per publisher which is an extreme bargain.  After the 24 hour special, I changed the price to $300 and I expect it to continue to sell well.

You can charge $500 or $10 or whatever you wish.  It will be your product to sell, give away or whatever you want to do with it.  That’s the entire point of this special.

Are you ready to have your own product?  If so… just send your $300 to PayPal@DiegoNorte.com along with your choices for color, product name, company name and URL.  In less than one business day, I’ll have your new product to you ready to sell as many copies as you wish and keep all of the profit.

The offer expires at noon tomorrow (CST which is GMT-6) so now is the time to find out if you have the only other attribute that is absolutely essential to being successful in your own Internet business… the ability to be decisive… the ability to make a decision and then to take action.

This is the best time in the history of mankind to start your own successful Internet business.  The economic downturn works only to our advantage.  Business has never been better.  Did you know that more millionaires were made during the great depression than at any other time in history?  It’s true.

Are you ready to turn the current economic downturn into your opportunity?

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

Figuring out traffic statistics is a necessary part of your marketing responsibilities if you want to succeed online. It’s an obvious course of action but one that many webmasters fail to act upon. Taking advantage of other people’s neglect will help you dominate the competition.

There really isn’t any excuse not to be proactive in evaluating the amount of traffic your are receiving, what target audience is visiting and what areas of concern you need to improve to ensure you are bringing in the right people. This also helps you work on getting more quality traffic.

Here are 3 tips that will help you understand the criteria for analyzing website traffic.

Tip#1: begin by examining the most basic data which would be the average visitors to your site on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. These figures amount to the most precise measure of your site’s activity. It would show on the surface the more traffic recorded the better you can assume your website is doing, but that is a mistaken perception. You must also look at the actions of your visitors once they visit your site to accurately determine the effectiveness of your website.

Tip#2: determine how long on average your visitors spend on your site and if they are spending a relatively short time while visiting, it usually indicates an underlying issue. Then the challenge is to figure out what that issue is. Making the slightest change to your campaign or site’s structure could do wonders. It could be that your keywords are targeting the wrong type of visitors, or your graphics are baffling and/or daunting which is causing the visitor to exit hastily. You would be surprised what some minor touches can do to enhance your visitor’s experience at your website.

Tip#3: do not get hung up on how many “hits” your site receives. This can often mislead site owners to believe that if they have a good amount of hits they can consider those numbers a success which is very far from the truth. Quality traffic is much more important than a bunch of hits to your site. Hits simply means the amount of information requests received by the server. It’s much more productive to measure the amount of visitors that visit your website and the actions they are taking when they are there.

Web traffic stats can help you determine your site’s effective and ineffective areas and after you have analyzed your visitor statistics you can take action accordingly by taking advantage of what is working and improving or removing what is not. Some competitors are way ahead of the curve because they are always analyzing website traffic statistics and subsequently integrating techniques helping them leave their competition in the dust.

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

If you haven’t heard of Craigslist yet, let me give you a quick definition of what it is. Craigslist is an online free classifieds site where people go to either purchase or buy some sort of product or service. Even though this site is not really an auction site, it is sometimes put into the same category as Ebay and Amazon. This article will give a few simple tips when trying to make a little extra cash as a seller on Craigslist.

First off, you need to understand a little bit about how Craigslist works. The basics behind Craigslist are; once you set up an account on Craigslist you will be able to post several ads that can be used to market something that you are trying to directly sell or to drive traffic to a website that will then lead to more sales. The problem a lot of people run into when attempting to post ads on Craigslist is getting their ads seen. Yes, it is true that Craigslist gets over 45 million views a month but; the real truth is, there are millions of ads being posted on a regular basis.

So, how can you get your ad seen? Listed below are a few easy tips that you can use to help get your ads seen on Craigslist and in turn make some sales.

Post Ads In The Big Cities - This will be very beneficial because the majority of traffic that comes through Craigslist is from big cities. I would recommend posting in cities such as Miami, New York, Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles and Phoenix.

Post In The High Traffic Categories - Posting in high traffic categories basically explains itself. Yes, there is more competition in these categories, but the number of potential buyers will out weight the competition. If possible, I would stick with posting ads in the jobs/sales/marketing categories. These categories, hands down, get the most traffic on Craigslist.

Do Not Clutter You Ad Content - What I mean by this is, double space after each line in your ad. Make it look like a newspaper ad. Doing this will make your ad easier to read. Not double spacing your content will make your ad look like a paragraph that is a huge no, no.

Keep Your Ad Short And Suspenseful - If possible do not have more then 5 or 6 short lines in your ad. People do not want to read a whole bunch of ad content. The idea is to get people to act by either calling, emailing, or going to a site. So, when writing your ad, do not come off to “sales like”. Give them just enough to make them want to pick up the phone or go to that site. This technique applies to the title as well. Make the title interesting enough to where they want to click on your ad.

In conclusion, Craig’s list is a great place for you to advertise and promote your business. Spend some time to designing your ads there can reap you great dividends in the long run.

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

So you had that fantastic business idea, the one that’s going to be wildly successful and make you a fortune - and even better, you actually did something about it and started your own business. Good for you! Not everyone gets even that far. Most people sit and day dream about what they might do if only ….

“The world is full of dreamers, there aren’t enough who will move ahead and begin to take concrete steps to actualize their vision” - W. Clement Stone

But you got over the biggest hurdle, you took that first step and you actually created something.

Well done - you already did more than most. But once you’ve got started and you’ve maybe lost that first flush of enthusiasm with the day to day details of running your business how do you keep going?

There are several things to look at here:

1. What are you really good at and what do you enjoy doing? Make two lists - one of all the jobs you like and/or are good at, and one of all the jobs you hate and/or really don’t do very well. Take the second list and have a look at what you might outsource or automate. Do you really love doing those accounts or would your time be better spent in forward planning while your accountant does the sums? Must you personally reply to every last enquiry or could you create a FAQ which you can post on your website and refer people to by autoresponder? Obviously in the early stages of your business you might find you don’t have the money to pay someone to do the jobs you hate but you’ve got to think about what is best for you and your business long term. Be creative - could you swap skills to get the help you need? The more routine jobs you can outsource or automate the more time you have to plan and to market your business, and to think about even more ways to bring in all that lovely cash - not to mention you get to spend more of your time doing the things you really enjoy doing.

2. Why are you doing this? You really need to be motivated to start a business and keep it going and the best way to do this is to know what all that effort is for. What really moves you to get up in the morning and do what you need to do even when you don’t really feel like it? Write your reasons down and stick them on your wall. Even better find pictures of that house in the country, the Lamborghini or that ‘must have’ holiday and put them where you can see them every day.

3. How do you deal with those inevitable bumps in the road? Not everything you do will be perfect - sometimes things you’ve tried will be a total disaster - but it’s the way you react to problems that matters. If you curl up in a ball and give up at the first sign of failure you’d better not be in business.  “Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.” - John Quincy Adams. It’s all about attitude.

4. Have a plan and stick to it as far as possible but always be prepared to be flexible and open minded. Sometimes the most unexpected opportunities come up and you need to be ready to seize them with both hands - as Joe Vitale says ‘Money likes speed’.

5. Get yourself a mentor - learn from someone who has done it before. Having someone to bounce ideas off and someone who can encourage you when things get tough is invaluable.

And most importantly, never let anyone put you down and never be afraid of failure.

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

A marketing plan that outlines the key steps you will need to take to drive traffic to your website is essential.

Having a marketing plan will also help you set your advertising budget for your website, which determines the tools that you can use in generating traffic to your website. “Fail to plan and you’re planning to fail.”

Here are the steps that you must take to develop your marketing plan and build traffic to your website:

1. Determine your objectives and targets. After you have built your website for your online business, you must establish your primary objective: “How much do I want to earn from my online business?” This will determine the volume of traffic you will need to make the necessary sales you want to make. Your objective will guide you in deciding the level of promotion you need to do to advertise your website and build traffic to it.

2. Establish your advertising budget. This is a very important step. There are many ways of driving traffic to your website; some are free, some affordable, while others are expensive. You need to decide what your budget is and therefore what tools to use to drive traffic to your website.

3. Invest in the necessary tools that you need in advertising your website. In order to capture leads and follow-up with your prospects, it is necessary for your website to have an automated email system or auto-responder which captures your prospects email address and automatically send them emails on a regular basis. These emails will have a link to your website and will invite your subscribers to visit your website. Your emails can (and should) also be used to build the relationship between you and your visitors, and promote interest in your products.

4. Decide what your short and long term advertising strategies are. The quickest and easiest way to generate traffic and leads for any business is pay per click (PPC) advertising because it can bring you immediate results. PPC can also help you drive targeted traffic to your website. Pay per click marketing is normally considered to be the short-term solution for generating targeted traffic and leads fast, but it is also considered to be one of the most expensive ways to advertise your business. However, you also need to have some marketing strategies that will generate traffic to your website in the long term. Article marketing, blogging and forum participation are some of these less costly ways of generating traffic to your website.

Before you start spending money on any strategy for generating traffic to your website, you must ensure that you follow the steps outlined above as they help you select the best marketing tools for driving traffic to your website.

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

Our 2nd most effective traffic generation system is article marketing with Artemis Pro.  Just check out the traffic this site receives using Alexa, Compete, Quantcast or your favorite third party traffic reporting service to see how effective this tactic has been for us.

Many purchase Artemis Pro and then fail to create a publisher list.  A large publisher list is the most important factor for getting the most amount of traffic using Artemis Pro for article marketing. 

How would you like to have access to my own publisher list?  No problem.  You can get it for a penny a publisher for the next 24 hours during this special.  Here is the URL:

http://www.DiegoNorte.com/products/publishers/

This special is only valid until noon tomorrow CST (which is GMT-6) though.  This CD contains a list of over 10,000 publishers in a comma separated file.  You get their email address, publication  name and editor name.  It is formatted for immediate use with Artemis Pro although you can also use it with many other article submission services and software.

If you don’t yet have Artemis Pro, you can get that here:

http://www.ArtemisPro.com

If you want our #1 traffic strategy, you can get the complete package here with our franchise system:

http://www.DiegoNorte.com/services/Franchise/

Artemis Pro and the franchise system can be purchased any time though.  This 24 hour special is for the CD containing over 10,000 publishers for use with Artemis Pro.  This offer expires at noon tomorrow so go here first:

http://www.DiegoNorte.com/products/publishers/

The list comes on a CD and will be delivered via mail so please allow a couple of days for delivery inside the U.S. and 7-10 days for delivery outside the U.S.

And please… enjoy the massive amounts of new traffic an effective article marketing strategy and a great publisher list can and will bring to your Internet business!

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

Whether your prospect opted-in for a webinar, e-course or e-book, purchased a ticket to your physical seminar, or even opted-out, there’s an easy and often over-looked way to show your appreciation and even make more money. Send them through to a thank you page.

What’s a Thank You Page and How Do I Monetize It?

What’s a thank you page and how do I monetize it? A thank you page is a page they see after they’ve taken action; and they being your prospect or customer. If they buy something that’s the page they see after they’ve clicked the submit button in the shopping cart. If they’ve opted in that’s the page they see after they’ve opted in.

The Most Important Page is…

The most important page on the Internet is a thank you page of any kind. Why? Because you know you have someone who’s decisive. They’re seeing something of importance. An opt-out is a thank you page for someone who says okay, I want to opt-out.

Think about what you can do with your thank you pages. Most people think of it as something worth throwing in afterward; it’s an afterthought. They spend all of their time on the opt-in page and they don’t spend any time on the thank you page. They spend all their time on the shopping cart order page and no time on the thank you page.

The Most Monetizable Page is…

The thank you page is the most monetizable page on the Net. In fact, if you had an offer on the thank you page that was world-class, one of a kind, and that had an ethical bribe that had them take action that would be the most monetizable page on your website. What’s a thank you page? It’s the page people see after they take action, and to us it is the most valuable page on the Internet.

The second most valuable page is the opt-out page because someone is taking action. We tell our prospects and customers we only want one of two responses from you: “Yes please or no thanks.” There is no, “maybe,” there is no, “I’ll talk to my spouse or kids about it.” It’s not right now. The prospect or customer must be decisive. Deciding means you’re cutting off circumstances. Be brave, be courageous. Courage is not absence of fear, it’s mastery of fear; it’s abstinence to fear so deal with it. No thanks or yes thanks, that’s how being decisive is.

What To Do When A Sales Person Calls You At Home?

Next time you are confronted by a salesman, say no thanks or yes thanks. When a sales person calls us at home here’s what we say: “No thanks, right now. Will you give us your home phone number so we can call you at home and ask you about it?” They go, “I understood no thanks right now. But what is that? I’m not going to give you my home phone number.” We say, “You don’t like having people call you at home unexpected? Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

We saw that on a Seinfeld episode and we always use it. That’s something that you can use as an additional bonus. No thanks right now and how about you giving me your home phone number so I can call you at home and ask you all about it. Hopefully that’s putting a smile on your face.

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

Fully automatic article marketing is now ready for the franchise systems.  If you are already a full system franchise owner (paying $500/mo), then ignore this email.  You will automatically be upgraded to have the full article marketing procedures.

If you aren’t yet a franchise owner or selected the “hire procedure only” plan during the last special, then this email IS for you.

Until noon tomorrow, if you order a new franchise you will get everything on the order page plus the following procedures not even listed on the sales page yet:

1. A ghostwriting procedure.  Your contractors will be instructed to review your blog and write another blog entry in the style of your blog.  All of the entries on DiegoNorte.com after the first 5 were written using this procedure.  DiegoNorte.com is completely hands off!  Your blog can be too!

2. Article evaluation procedure.  Many contractors will try to cheat and submit crap to the above procedure.  This procedure catches them and sends them a nice email telling them that five of their peers evaluated their article and rejected it because _______.  The blank might be spelling, grammar, article quality, not fitting the style of the blog, etc.  There are 10 areas that are evaluated.  If five contractors evaluate an article as good… the article automatically goes on the blog.  This procedure does hold articles if there has already been an article posted that day.  That way your blog will get one new quality article every day.

3. Submit article procedure.  This procedure automatically submits a new article to major article submission lists every day.  Each of the above articles that are selected for your blog are held in a queue and one is randomly chosen each day.  After several weeks, an article might be reselected for submission.  This has resulted in a dramatic increase in traffic at DiegoNorte.com.  It can do the same on your site.

The cost of the franchise system is really trivial when you consider that everything is fully automated.  The only activity you have to do is to upload a comma separated file to PayPal to pay your contractors.  That takes about 5 minutes and you could hire someone local that you can trust with your PayPal password for that one task.  The rest of the time you can relax on the beach (that’s what I do with most of my time!)

The procedures are proven to be profitable in my own business.  I don’t worry about the amount that is paid to those contractors weekly.  I know my revenue will always be higher than my expenses.

Now you can franchise my own proven system.  Here is the URL to get started:

http://www.DiegoNorte.com/services/Franchise/

If you already have a full franchise (ie: you are already paying $500/mo and have a franchise installed), then ignore this email.  You’ll automatically get the above procedures for your continued loyalty to the program.  New franchisees joining after this 24 hour special will have to order these procedures separately.

If you don’t yet have a franchise, then go to the above URL and read more.  Keep in mind that the above three items are extras included only in this special offer.  You get them for ordering before noon tomorrow (CST which is GMT-6).

If you have a limited franchise, then now is the time to upgrade.  Just cancel your current PayPal subscription and join again during this special to get all of the above procedures added to your system.  This upgrade does not require any down-time for your current franchise.  It can be done while contractors are working on your existing procedures and blog readers are reading your latest article.

Here is the URL again:

http://www.DiegoNorte.com/services/Franchise/

This is our flagship service.  If you aren’t yet a part of it, you need to check it out today.

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

There are myriad ways to promote your website (and yourself) on the Internet. You can easily do this with article marketing. You run a website; obviously, you have knowledge that you can share with others. There’s no better way to do this than with article marketing!

Many people search online articles for information on so many subjects, running the gamut from how to cure a colicky baby to how to plan for retirement. We all have expertise in certain areas; you can share your experience or passions with others through the Internet.

Numerous articles can be written on your subject. You can begin with a general overview, telling what you know about your subject and your experience with the material you are offering. This will show your readers how knowledgeable you are. Then, add more articles, going more in-depth with your subject matter. Let people know that you have something interesting to share. This will make them want to go to your website and buy what you are selling.

There are numerous free sites to submit articles for online publication for free. This means you have an easy no-cost way to promote your site and your product, and it costs nothing! Google arcticle marketing, and you’ll find LOTS of sites to register for free and enter in your articles! The more times you submit articles, the faster you’ll become an expert author.

It’s natural to be a little fearful of attempting to write, especially if you’ve been out of school for a while. Relax and write what comes naturally to you; pretend that you’re telling your best friend about your subject in person. Use the word program on your computer so you can edit your article. When you’re finished, read it out loud to yourself to check for mistakes and to make sure that it flows like you want.

One caveat: don’t give away too much information. You want people to go to your site and buy what you’re selling and to need your expertise. Save the best information for your site. Lead your readers to your site by making them want more of what you have to offer.

Submit as many articles as you want, to as many sites as you want! It takes little time and won’t cost you a cent to give article marketing a try! One way to get a good flow is to write a number of articles and submit them as a series.

People want to learn from your experience! Now you know an easy, effective way to do this for free. Log on to the sites! Begin writing and you’ll be surprised to see how much activity article marketing can generate for you!

Send out as many articles as you can and see the responses you will generate from marketing your article. All it takes is several articles to generate lot’s of people to your site. Once you generate your responses then your marketing is on it’s way to generating lot’s of income.

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

We do a lot of web hosting and have run into some really crummy companies over the last few years and some great companies. Want a web hosting recommendation?

Here are three we currently recommend:

http://www.MochaHost.com

http://www.HostMonster.com

http://www.GNPNet.com

Here are some we have used and do NOT recommend:

http://www.HostGator.com

http://www.SiteGround.com

http://www.BlueHost.com

http://www.ResellerEdge.com

http://www.RackSpace.com

http://www.AptHost.com

http://www.Sixty6Hosting.com

http://www.webhosting.uk.com

http://www.BigBlueHost.com

http://www.newista.com

http://www.cirtex.com

http://www.cirtexhosting.com

http://www.powweb.com

http://www.A2Hosting.com

http://www.HostNine.com

http://www.ExclusiveHosting.net

http://www.hostignition.com

http://www.000webhost.com

http://www.handsonwebhosting.com

http://www.towerhost.com

http://www.interactiveonline.com

http://www.Lanka-web.com

http://www.amhosting.com

http://www.inmotionhosting.com

http://www.virgohosting.com

http://www.dotservant.com

http://www.cpanelhosting.net

http://www.slhost.com

Any David Tanguay company.

We’ll update the list as we go through old records. More importantly, we are setting up software to objectively evaluate every host we use. The software also monitors web-site up-time and automatically contacts your host if your site is down for longer than 15 minutes. It notifies you so that you can start the transfer process to another host if your site is down for longer than an hour.

Those running the franchise system need a reliable host. We currently provide a reliable host so if you are using a franchise, you don’t need to worry about this. You’ll automatically get the latest version of the site checking software installed.

If you are running our procedures independently of a franchise setup, then we’ll be offering this new software to you soon. You’ll be able to join our network of sites that all constantly check each other for up time and automatically notify your host if your site is down. You’ll also be able to view the network statistics and objectively see which hosts do a better job of keeping your site running (and which hosts objectively made it onto our “not recommended” list because they simply can’t do their most important job… keeping your site running and available to potential customers and other visitors).

I hope this list helps you select a good host. A bad host is the worst nightmare for an Internet business!

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

You have your own home business and are entirely self-employed. You are the owner, manager, accountant and all the other employees bundled up into one body. You work harder than anyone you know yet it doesn’t seem like you have a “real business” because you are at home all day. So how do you keep yourself in the right state of mind?

Here are seven things every home business entrepreneur should do to stay in the business state of mind and find more success:

1. Supply your office. Just because you run a home business doesn’t mean you can’t have a real office. Supply your office with the necessary equipment to run your business professionally. This could consist of things like a desk, a comfy chair, computer, fax machine, printer, copier, phone line, stationary, etc… All the things that businesses tend to have.

2. Get up early. You don’t have to get up at 5am with the rest of the idiots who sit in traffic for two hours every day on the way to their jobs, but don’t sleep all day either. Get up at a decent time and make it the same every day. This will keep you on a regular schedule to help get you going on each business day.

3. Wear nice clothes. Don’t throw on sweatpants and a t-shirt after your morning shower. You should dress as if you had to go to an office. The better you dress the more professional you will feel. This is great for keeping you feeling like a real business person.

4. Go somewhere. Since you don’t actually have to commute to work you can use that time to go to your local cafe for some breakfast. Use this time to plan your business day and get yourself in the right state of mind. Bring a notebook and planner to write down notes to self and get your to do list ready.

5. Get started. You look great, feel like a real business professional, and have a full stomach, so it’s time to start your work day. Head back to your home office and get started on your list of business tasks to accomplish that day. It’s best to do the most important things first so you can get them out of the way.

6. Find business friends. Just because you don’t have coworkers or other business associates around you all day like regular businesses do doesn’t mean you can’t find a suitable replacement for them. Go find other entrepreneurs in your area to build relationships with. Have lunch meetings or brainstorming sessions with your “coworkers” a couple of times per week.

7. Speak business. When you are emailing or talking to clients, prospective clients, other business people, or anyone else that has anything to do with your business you should speak as if you were at a corporate office. Say things like, “I’ll be at the office all day” or “My company deals with…” and other things that keep you sounding like a business professional instead of someone who just sits at home all day.

Ok, that’s it. Now you have seven things you, as a home business entrepreneur, should do to keep a professional business image and get yourself in the right state of mind to do business each day. These simple tasks will work wonders for helping you to succeed in your home business.

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

Have you ever visited a website and reviewed the entire home page only to see at the bottom “Last Revised May, 1997″. Isn’t it frustrating to think that you are looking at something innovative and useful and it’s really ancient history?

Being current directly affects the usability of a site. In this day and age of split second decisions, easy access to information, and the many, many choices available to people out there, you have to be sure you have a usable, relevant site.

Think of the money you’ve invested on designing, creating and publishing your site. Doesn’t it only make sense that you would also maintain it?

What exactly does maintain mean? Maintain means keeping something in existence and in the approriate condition or operation. So, applying this to your website/business only makes sense, right?

Depending on your business type some of this maintenance can be as simple as the following.

1. Change the color or theme to reflect the time of year that it is - snowflakes in the winter, baseballs in the summer, etc.

2. Highlight new things in your site with catchy words or phrases.

3. If you keep news items on your site, make sure that the news is current and relevant.

4. If you are a shopping site, make sure to rotate featured items to bring a freshness to your site.

Perhaps you want or need your changes to be more complex to maintain your site.

1. Complete changes in content to help returning customers in different stages of a process.

2. Add new items to respond to the traffic and demand on the site.

Always audit your site or ask someone else to help you do that. What’s worse than a broken image that may have contained your phone number or a link to send feedback that gives the customer an error. Maybe you link to other sites to help your customers. These sites you use are not responsible for ensuring whether you have the right link. Or what if a link changes, you need to audit your site with regularity to make sure you don’t have any broken links.

Clearly, it would never be your intent to put out a broken page but these things happen. Put it on your schedule. A few minutes a week or every few days to click test your site. Send test emails, push all the buttons, try all the links, and see if you can break your site. This will help you to ensure your customer will not visit you only to leave frustrated only to never return again.

I once said “Just because you have a website does not mean that you will get all the business you were hoping for.” Well, in that same vain, once you get the business, why not make sure your website helps you keep that business.

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

If there is one absolute rule for making money from your website it’s that you need visitors or “traffic” as it is commonly called. If hardly anyone visits your site the chances of it generating an income are slim to none.

Many people think that they need to spend a lot of money to generate a steady stream of website traffic. This is not true at all. Yes, there are plenty of ways to pay for traffic but there are also a lot of free traffic techniques that work very well.

Here are 5 free techniques for generating traffic to your website:

1) Article Marketing

There are countless article directories, ezines, and websites on the internet that need a constant supply of content so they are willing to accept article submissions from others. This is a great opportunity for you to create free website traffic by writing and submitting articles.

All you have to do is write articles that are themed along with the niche of your site. Write on topics that you have some knowledge on so that when people read your articles, they can see your expertise on the subject and will want visit your site for more information. Your articles should be well written, informative, and useful. The higher the quality, the better your chances of gaining traffic and making money.

At the end of each article include an “about the author” box with a little information about you or your business and a link to your website. This is how you will get traffic from the article.

2) Link Exchanges

This technique has been proven for years as a great free traffic method. Exchanging links isn’t nearly as effective as it once was but it’s still more than worth doing. Rarely will you ever see a site where there is no links other sites. Many webmasters are willing to exchange links with one another so that they can provide more options for their visitors and get traffic from the other site. After a few months of link exchanges you will begin to notice the steady increase traffic coming to your site from other sites.

Link exchanges also boost your rankings in the search engines such as Google or Yahoo. It’s well known that search engines rank websites higher that have a large amount of inbound links. With a good ranking position in the search engines, you will generate more free traffic to your website than with virtually any other method.

One thing you need to make sure of before you exchange links with any site is that it’s a quality site and at least somewhat related to yours. Exchanging with just any old site can do more harm than help to your site.

3) Traffic Exchanges

I’m not a big advocate of traffic exchanges because I haven’t ever had great results considering the time you have to put in. However, some people do well with traffic exchanges and they are free.

Basically what you do with these is view another person’s website in exchange for a view of yours by somebody. You both benefit from each others efforts to generate free website traffic. The other sites visitors can visit your pages and see your site as well as theirs. The conversion rates aren’t usually very high but if you can get enough free traffic from this method then it may be worth trying.

4) Build a List

This can be one of the most difficult free traffic techniques but it’s certainly possible to do and will reward you many times over for your hard work. Offering a free ebook, a free report, or a free informative newsletter are a few of the best ways to build a list of subscribers. Plus, there are many people who are willing to provide free content for your newsletter as long as they can get their name in it. Be sure to provide valuable information for your subscribers and as your list grows you will be able to make money from sending them an affiliate promotion every once in a while.

4) Internet Marketing and Online Business Forums

This really only requires your time and no money at all. You just share your knowledge and expertise in online business forums, with a link to your website in your signature, and you can get a lot of free traffic over time.

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

Most parents today are finding it hard to allow one parent to stay home with the children, and still be able to pay all their bills. Thus, the need arises for them to bring in some extra income. That is why many look into running their own home business.

As with anything new, this can become a challenging venture. Not only does one have to find the money to start up a business, they also have to find the time. They have to learn how to prioritize effectively. A new business will need a great deal of attention to keep it afloat. However, the children will also need attention.

It can be hard for parents to learn how to do this effectively. They will need to set up a schedule that works around their children. The business is important for them to make money. However, their children are much more important.

Stay at home moms and dads are emerging everyday. In today’s society it seems easier to stay at home with the children, then to spend the extra cash having someone else care for them. It just takes patience when searching for a business that works around family.

Children can have varying schedules. That is why it is so important to learn how to schedule work time appropriately. You do not want your business or children to suffer. You must learn to manage your time effectively and generously.

Do not give up. Everything can be set to a schedule. It just takes some time and effort to get things flowing smoothly. “Family first” is a great slogan to stick with.

Family is the reason many decide to stay home. Supporting that family is the reason why most start home businesses. Do no ever lose hindsight of this. Family should alway be placed above anything else.

The time put into a home business should never interfere with the time that children need. It is best to schedule work times around the down times of children (i.e. nap times, while children are in school, bedtimes, etc). Write down their schedule, in order to help with setting up a schedule for the business.

Time spent with children is very precious. They grow up so fast. Do not let these times slip away. Work time can always be made up. Time spent with family is irreplaceable. Do not let their childhood suffer because of the business.

One should be able to manage their business and take care of their children easily. It is all in the scheduling. The better one schedules their time; the easier life will be for everyone.

If one wanted to manage their time even more effectively, they could base their home business around children. Then, they could work alongside of their children. Children can be a great source of inspiration for many business ideas.

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

This is a great time to own an online business. With so much going on in the economy, you may be wondering if you’ve really made the right decision. A traditional job may seem more stable. But is it? The world as we know it seems to be changing, so here is a little encouragement for your online business venture.

1. You will save money by telecommuting - Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve noticed that gas prices are still rising. By working from home and on your own, you will save money and wear and tear on your car by not having to make the daily round trip to and from work.

2. Customers will save money by ordering online - Whether your product is needed everyday or fills a niche, your customers will be able to save gas money by ordering online instead of driving to a specialty store. Online businesses are booming right now, simply because most people are looking for ways to travel less. Your online business can benefit from this!

3. Rent / storage is cheap - Wait, this is an online business…why would this matter? Depending on the type of product or service you sell, you might find yourself quickly needing to store merchandise or have a central location other than the spare bedroom or garage. Now is a great time to invest in property if you are in a position to do so. There are also deals available from storage facilities trying to attract customers in these hard times.

4. No fear of layoff - This is your business. The success or failure of the business is in your hands. Many of us have had the unfortunate experience of being laid off from a job. In how many of those situations did you find yourself questioning the business practices of higher-ups? By owning your own business, you are in complete control of how it is run.

5. Online tools are more available now than ever - With the growth of online retail, many companies have made software and programs with online business in mind. It is easier than ever before to find good resources to help with your business. Some companies even offer free versions for you to try out.

6. You can target your market - Many consumers in the world have been increasingly annoyed by the mass marketing of many retailers these days. They are now looking for smaller businesses that can meet their specific needs instead of trying to fit into a one size fits all product. They may be looking for “green” or natural or animal friendly businesses and you are in a position to make your company what your customers want it to be.

So be encouraged! Online business can be a scary and exciting step. But while it has been a shaky way to go in the past, it may just be gaining grown over traditional business. This is a great time to get started!

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

Do you have days where you feel like you’re the only one dealing with the business owner issues you face? It might be time to find a support system.

While your family and friends have an idea of the things you’re going through with your new business, they may not have the first hand experience. This will make it hard for them to relate, understand, and make suggestions. You need to find people who have already been there. So where can you look for these peers?

1. The internet - It’s an obvious place to start. Your business is online, your customers are online. Who else would know more about running and online business than a fellow online business owner? They can be a wealth of knowledge, providing you with experiences and sources. They will know of other sites and helpful software. They can lend an ear when you need to vent or just can’t seem to figure out how to solve a problem. Look for message boards and email groups.

2. Community small business groups - While your business is an online venture, it is still a business. Most cities have several groups and resources for their small business owners. Try checking with your local chamber of commerce or looking for a small business newsletter that circulates in your area. You may be able to find small business support groups that meet from time to time to discuss issues facing businesses in the area.

3. Look to your competition for help - This may seem like a silly idea. After all, they are your competitors. However, you may find that if you ae not in direct competition with you, they may be very willing to trade ideas. If their similar business caters to a small local community and they don’t have an internet presence, you would not be competing directly. You may even find yourself able to partner and increase gains for both parties.

Having a support system of people you can bounce ideas off of and exchange information with is a great idea, especially when you’re just starting out. You will find yourself with questions on things like what to do if you need to “close” while you’re on vacation. A support system will give you a place to gather information and answers from people who have been there and tried out various things already. More than that, it will give you a place to vent or be encouraged on those bad days. Maybe you think it’s just your business that has slowed to a crawl, only to find that several of your peers are experiencing the same thing and have ideas as to why it’s happening.

You may also find yourself needing to invest in software and your peers will have great input as to which is the best for your needs. After all, they have already tried it. At some point, you may even find yourself the person giving the newbies answers and it always feels nice to be the experienced person.

So get out there, make some friends, and you and your business will benefit from having a good strong support system.

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

The Internet has changed the way we do business, and the way we do marketing. Ten years ago, it was enough to have a print ad in the Yellow Pages and a quick radio spot to spread the word about your business. Now there are new ways to market your business on the Web, and they’re wonderfully cost-efficient.

The internet is such a huge market place. People from all points of the globe are going online on a daily basis looking for products to buy. This huge demand has prompted a lot of marketers to take their business on the World Wide Web. Are you one of them?

Whether you are selling your own products or promoting affiliate products, it is very important that you know the elements and the tools that you need to use in order to secure great sales potential in the online arena.

Here’s how you can sell more over the internet:

1. The first thing that you need to do is to create your own website. No matter how good you are and no matter how great your products are, people will not possibly take you seriously if you don’t have your own place over the internet. Hire a professional web designer to create an ecommerce website for you where you can showcase your products and services. Ensure that your website is easy to navigate, secure, and loaded with valuable information that are closely related to your offerings and to your chosen niche.

2. Drive traffic to your website. Think of your website as a shopping mall. You will need to attract people to give it a visit before you can actually make a sale. Use different traffic-generating tools that can help you drive interested people to your website. You can promote your website on relevant forums, blogs, discussion boards, and social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace, etc.). You can also use article marketing and various link building campaigns that can make your website highly valuable to the eyes of various search engines.

3. Promote your products. Promote product awareness by properly advertising your offerings online. For this, you can use PPC advertising, search engine marketing, paid links, banner ads, ezine publishing, email marketing, etc. Since promoting your products using all available tools can be exhausting and time-consuming, you may opt to hire professional internet marketers to help you out. You will need to share a certain percentage of your earnings with these people in exchange of their services.

4. Take good care of your customers. As they say, the most effective advertising strategy is word-of-mouth advertising. Ensure that you keep all your customers happy and satisfied through your products and through your customer service. By doing so, these people will surely recommend you to their friends and family members who might need your offerings.

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

You have your own home business and are entirely self-employed. You are the owner, manager, accountant and all the other employees bundled up into one body. You work harder than anyone you know yet it doesn’t seem like you have a “real business” because you are at home all day. So how do you keep yourself in the right state of mind?

Here are seven things every home business entrepreneur should do to stay in the business state of mind and find more success:

1. Supply your office. Just because you run a home business doesn’t mean you can’t have a real office. Supply your office with the necessary equipment to run your business professionally. This could consist of things like a desk, a comfy chair, computer, fax machine, printer, copier, phone line, stationary, etc… All the things that businesses tend to have.

2. Get up early. You don’t have to get up at 5am with the rest of the idiots who sit in traffic for two hours every day on the way to their jobs, but don’t sleep all day either. Get up at a decent time and make it the same every day. This will keep you on a regular schedule to help get you going on each business day.

3. Wear nice clothes. Don’t throw on sweatpants and a t-shirt after your morning shower. You should dress as if you had to go to an office. The better you dress the more professional you will feel. This is great for keeping you feeling like a real business person.

4. Go somewhere. Since you don’t actually have to commute to work you can use that time to go to your local cafe for some breakfast. Use this time to plan your business day and get yourself in the right state of mind. Bring a notebook and planner to write down notes to self and get your to do list ready.

5. Get started. You look great, feel like a real business professional, and have a full stomach, so it’s time to start your work day. Head back to your home office and get started on your list of business tasks to accomplish that day. It’s best to do the most important things first so you can get them out of the way.

6. Find business friends. Just because you don’t have coworkers or other business associates around you all day like regular businesses do doesn’t mean you can’t find a suitable replacement for them. Go find other entrepreneurs in your area to build relationships with. Have lunch meetings or brainstorming sessions with your “coworkers” a couple of times per week.

7. Speak business. When you are emailing or talking to clients, prospective clients, other business people, or anyone else that has anything to do with your business you should speak as if you were at a corporate office. Say things like, “I’ll be at the office all day” or “My company deals with…” and other things that keep you sounding like a business professional instead of someone who just sits at home all day.

Ok, that’s it. Now you have seven things you, as a home business entrepreneur, should do to keep a professional business image and get yourself in the right state of mind to do business each day. These simple tasks will work wonders for helping you to succeed in your home business.

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

This week I want to discuss making yourself marketable online, not in selling products, but in getting hired. Given our current economic state, a large majority of middle-class workers are asking themselves, “what can I do to bring in a little extra income?” With all the online job postings available, particularly work-from-home positions, it’s difficult to find a perfect fit, but there are a few key things you can do to help yourself in the race for another job.

Consider these steps to help you along the way:

1. Explain what you do.

Think about any sales position you’ve worked or any you’ve heard about. What is the salesman’s goal? To tell a customer what the product is and why they need to buy it now. Finding work online functions on the same principle: what do you do for the company and why do they need you now? As simple as this sounds, this is the most important part in getting the job you want. Think about it: why did you purchase the last major item in your life? What helped you make the decision for your specific product against another? Sell yourself first by selling what you do.

2. Show the company your unique traits.

Okay, so the addendum to the above point is that in selling yourself you have to be yourself. These companies are looking for individuals that fill the requirements of the job but also add to the ideals of the company. Unless your job is filling out endless surveys, your contributions, in person or online, contribute to the image of the company. So, in the midst of explaining how you’ll do the job the best, use your personality to demonstrate that you’re an employee that will add to the company in a positive manner.

3. Look for the right job.

Make sure that the job for which you are applying is a job you see yourself doing and, for the most part, enjoying. If you don’t like data entry, don’t apply for a data entry job. If you like a job in ghostwriting, apply. It’s that simple: apply for a position that excites you and won’t be a dread Monday morning.

4. Watch your back.

While many job positions are legitimate, many individuals have found success in the internet industry by taking advantage of unsuspecting job applicants. When applying for a job, make note of the following points:

a) Do your research - make sure the company established. Typically, this means that there is a website, physical address, business references, etc. If you can’t find any information, request some. If they don’t provide any, it may be best to move on to another offer.

b) Protect your money - be very wary of any company that offers you a “great position” after you finish their $20 training program. Think of your last job interview - did they ask you to start work on Monday after you purchased the $40 training book? No. So why would an online company require this? If a company wants to hire you, they’ll make sure you have to best training - for free.

c) Seek out other employees/ex-employees - one of the best ways to find out about a company is to find someone who works or did work for the company. Do they enjoy work? Did they feel like their work was valued? What are the strengths/weaknesses of the company? Why did they take the job? Why did they leave the company? All these questions will give you answers that will help you determine if this company is the best fit for you.

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

1. The first step is to understand what it means to be part of a successful online business.

Is success measured by money, the amount of customers the business receives or the output? Is it all three of these? or none?

While most people think that success is measured by money, it is actually measured by the amount of output a company generates. In today’s society, many measure their success depending on the amount of income they receive. This is not right. A good company exports more than they import, which in turn generates a profit. But the exporting is what makes the company successful.

2. Target the demographics of the product you are selling.

Is your product geared towards youth, middle-aged or senior citizens? It is more towards males or females?

Once you target the demographics of consumers you are looking for, you will be able to begin to advertise for this specific group of people. In trying to pinpoint a younger age group, it would be more logical to advertise on a site like MTV rather than one for nursing homes.

3. Knowing how to decorate the webpage.

Presentation is extremely important. If you are watching your favorite show on tv and during the commercial break there shows a man in front of the camera speaking in a monotone voice about a certain medication, chances are you will not be drawn to this commercial and will instead change the channel.

Design your website so that it appeals to the eye. Use bright colors and flashy logos. This is proven to work.

4. Make the website easily accessible.

Have you ever gone online to look at a webpage and forgot the URL? Well, if this has happened to you, you know how stressful it is.

Allow the company to be easily pulled up on search engines such as google, yahoo, altavista or any other. This way, if a customer is looking to find the website but cannot remember the exact address, they could google the company name and find it easily.

Even better, design a URL which can be easily remembered. If your company’s name is, say, Generation, try to grab the URL with generation in it. Easy and straight to the point, exactly what customers like.

5. Take every chance you get to advertise.

In today’s day and age with the bad financial market, it seems likely that people are not trying to spend money. But, if they see an advertisement for a product that they just cannot live without, they might be more pressured to buy it.

Use television, newspapers, magazines and other online websites to advertise for your product. This will get your company’s name out there.

These five hints will prove to be helpful in improving your online business. They are easy and extremely effective!

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

Starting a home business and turning it into a long-term profitable business venture is the dream of millions of people. Many pursue that dream and succeed; others fail and give up, but most never even try.

Remember you can’t build a successful home business if you never even try and you certainly aren’t going to get far if you can’t get up from your failures. You are in control of your own destiny. You have the freedom to choose success, failure, or just keep cruising through life on your safe wagon never going up or down.

Below I have given you three idiot proof home business success tips. They are the basis for creating any long-term profitable business. If you follow and stick with them, you won’t fail.

Idiot Proof Tip #1 - Promote high converting products with large profit margins.

It’s very hard to make a living if you are only selling products that make you a few dollars profit per sale. If you want to build a profitable home business you should be promoting products that make you at least $25.00 profit per sale. Remember, that this is what you need to make in profit so you must factor in your expenses and make at least that much extra per sale.

Idiot Proof Tip #2 - Take the time to create high converting marketing material.

You can have the best home business in the world but if your sales material does not bring in any visitors and then convert them into paying customers, you will not make money. Marketing is the life of your home business so this is very important!

Your advertisements, salesletters, promotional emails, affiliate marketing material, articles, etc… All need to work for you and bring in results. If you are not good at writing good sales copy then hire someone to do it for you or take the time to learn how to do it yourself.

Idiot Proof Tip #3 - Automate your home business as much as possible.

If you want to actually have any time to enjoy yourself then you will need to automate your home business as much as possible. Not to mention the fact that this will help tremendously in increasing your profits and free up time for other business tasks that actually help you to make money.

Autoresponders, outsourcing, and PLR are three great ways to save you a ton of time and increase your income potential. By automating your business and using pre-existing resources available, you can concentrate on the part of your home business you really enjoy… Making Money!

Follow these three home business tips like your life depends on it and you will have a successful home business. But before you can even begin to follow these tips you first have to take action and get starting on making your dreams come true. Stop sitting there waiting for the right time because that time is now!

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

If you haven’t already experienced this, odds are that you will. You sit in front of the computer, checking your email, waiting for that first order of the day to come in…but it never does. So what do you do on those zero dollar sale days?

It is not the best feeling for a small business owner to see those numbers staying still all day long. However, there are ways to combat the negative thoughts this brings on.

1) Use that down time to update your site or catch up on your inventory. Think of it as a work day.

2) Use it as a day off. Sometimes you will get so caught up in this business that you may even forget it’s the weekend or that there is no more milk in the fridge. Consider a slow business day a day to catch up on your non-business life.

3) Know that business will likely pick up. It may be later in the day, it may be tomorrow, it may be next week. Most small business owners would agree that slow days are typically followed by very busy days.

4) If you’re just starting out, realize that internet businesses almost always start out slowly. At the beginning, you may get a lot of window shoppers. As your business picks up, your sales will begin to include repeat customers and your slow days will slowly pick up too.

5) Keep the lives of your customers in mind. It may be a holiday, or vacation season. It may be the day of the month when a majority of your shoppers have to pay the mortgage or other bills. There may be a reason that people just aren’t visiting your site.

6) Use this time to think of new ways to advertise. There are always new places to promote your business. If you are selling a product directed to parents of small children, try checking into some parent forums or homeschooling forums. If your product is directed toward users of a certain product, do a goggle search to find message boards about that subject. Use a slow day to get your name out there.

7) If your slow day has turned into a week or more, it may be time to start a new promotion. Try to figure out what is preventing people from purchasing and create a promotion that addresses that issue.

Know that every business out there has it’s zero dollar days. If you have friends or colleagues who are also small business owners, ask them about their own experiences with slow sales.

9) Make sure everything is working properly on your site. This seems like the first thing most people would check, but it is often overlooked. It may take several customers visiting before they find a way to contact you to alert you to a problem, so don’t forget to check for yourself.

10) Lastly, don’t get discouraged! Every business out there suffers its slow periods. You may be especially prone to discouragement from these slow days if you are in the beginning stages of your business. Remind yourself that it will not last forever.

-~-

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

There may come a time in the life of your business when you find yourself faced with a bad customer. While we like to think that all of our customers have our company’s best interest in mind and want to conduct their business in a fair and honest manner, this may not always be the case. You may find yourself spending entirely too much time and money on one customer. There are several kinds of bad customer.

1. The returner - This customer will show their bad customer tendencies over time. They may repeatedly buy and return products. Watch out for customers returning similar products multiple times.

2. The impatient customer - This customer may not pay attention to the posted time-lines for shipping and demand that his money be refunded for slow service.

3. The threat-maker - This customer may threaten to take drastic action, such stopping payment with a credit card company (which may raise your fees with that company). Note, this may only be a bad customer if he or she jumps to this action first, before trying to resolve an issue in another way.

4. The high-maintenance customer - This customer may repeatedly ask for discounts on low profit margin items or make frequent specials requests that demand a lot of your time. Are you really making any money helping this customer?

So what can you do about a bad customer? You will have to decide if hanging on to that customer is worth your time and effort. All of your customers are important, but there may come a point where a customer is costing you money. You time may be better served in trying to find new customers.

So how do you “fire” a bad customer? There are several schools of thought on this subject.

Some people promote the honesty method: simply nicely telling a customer that their actions are costing your company valuable time and money because of extra credit card transaction, restocking, etc.

Others say they prefer to make excuses for rejecting a customer’s order, such as telling them the item is out of stock. This may work, but the customer may just decide to order a different item instead.

Another method is to treat the customer badly; lose orders, ship late. This may chase the bad customer away, but that customer may also decide to seek revenge by posting negative reviews in multiple places.

One more method is the vague method: Simply state that you don’t think your company is a good match for their needs and you will no longer be conducting business with them. They may ask for more details, in which case you will have to decide what to tell them.

Some final helpful hints on “firing” bad customers -

1. Post your shipping guidelines and return policies clearly on your site. That way, if a customer argues that they did not know about a certain policy, you will have a place to direct them. It is the customer’s responsibility to inform themselves on such policies.

2. Don’t beat around the bush. When you’ve made the decision that it’s time to let a customer go, get right to the point. Don’t waste more time and money.

I hope that you don’t have to deal with this issue soon, or often, but when you do, keep these tips in mind.

-~-

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

There are countless Pyramid Schemes out there that claim they’re proven to work. Many advertize “As seen on 20/20 or Oprah.” But, just because it has been publicized, that doesn’t mean it actually works. It’s very easy to see the $ dollar $ signs and jump right into trying whatever comes along. However, you must be careful and not waste your time or money on things that will not pay out.

There are so many Pyramid Schemes out there today that it’s hard to know which ones might work or will not. Always be on the look out for things that seem “too good to be true” because they probably are. For example, here is a common Pyramid Scheme that has been going around for a long time:

Invest in one another! There is not cost to start up. Simply send $1 to each of the six people listed on the sheet, then reprint the sheet after taking the number one person off and placing your name in the sixth slot. Then send this to as many people as you can, the more people you send it to the more income potential you can expect.

Whenever you see things like this, the first thing you should ask yourself is this: How much will it actually cost me to do this? Most people don’t think about things thoroughly before jumping into them. The most important thing is to look at the input you will be placing in the project versus the output of what will come from it. In the previous scenario before, you would need to figure in the cost of stamps, envelopes, paper, ink, and purchasing addresses to send the letters to. It’s very easy to overlook things even as simple as that.

Lets say that you chose to send out the above Pyramid Scheme to 200 people. The entire letter consists of six pages, which includes instructions on what to do for the next recipient, testimonials of people who have tried it and proved it works, and of course the page with the list of names of people you have to send money to. After buying the list of names to address your envelopes, the postage, and the supplies, you’re looking at costs around $200. And this wasn’t supposed to cost anything remember? Sure you’re not paying someone to get started but it IS costing you money to do it, and most of the Pyramid Schemes out there work the same way.

Don’t invest time and money into a project that will not pay out for your valuable time and effort put into it. Anything and everything you do should be done with this principle in mind: You should only do something up to the point where marginal benefit equals marginal cost. In other words, only continue doing something up to the point where it is no longer beneficial to you. If you’re sending out 10 letters or 200, you should be able to see the benefit quickly and it should make a profit, not just a return on the money you spent preparing the project.If your only making back the money you put into the project, then you can count that as a loss!

-~-

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

Using Google Adwords to advertise your company and your company’s website is a cost effective and results driven way to ensure to drive traffic to your site and make your name known.

Think about how you go about finding a service or product online. If you’re like me, you put that name or product into a search engine and then are shown a page where the company’s website is displayed for you or you can choose between other websites that may offer the product you are searching for. Search Engine Marketing is extremely easy and cost efficient to use. Here are the steps you must take to have your company displayed among your competitors.

1. You simply start by making a list of keywords. These are words or phrases that are related to your company or what your company sells. You can pick as many or as little words as you want. These will be your search words.

2. You then “bid” on these words individually. You can bid as much or as little as you want but you must take into consideration how “searchable” this particular word is. If it is an extremely popular search word, you will want to bid more for it. The more you bid the closer to the top of the search you will display.

3. You also set a max spending limit for your “campaign”. Since you only pay per click, meaning you will only be charged if people click on your link, you will never spend more then you are willing to invest. It is completely up to you and how much exposure you desire at any given time. This limit can be changed day to day, week to week or month to month - you are in complete control.

4. After these 3 steps are done you have completed the “hard work”. Now you can sit back and monitor your campaign as often as you’d like. You simply log in to Google AdWords and can see how well each one of your search words are doing in comparison to others. You can choose to delete or add any search words you’d like and you can change your bids if you desire to be shown higher on the search page.

Another way to have your website show up in more searched is called search engine optimization. This is completely free and is 100% beneficial. The key is to include your ideal “search words” in the actual text of your site. By doing this, your website will show up in a “natural search” just because of your site’s obvious legitimacy to the search word. For instance, if your company sells ladders and no where in the text of your site do you actually state this…say you only display pictures of ladders, you will not show up in a search of a user searching specifically for ladders, even though your company is completely relevant to the search. By having the words ladder written in the text of your site that word is like a little magnet and will help your site to show up in a search automatically based on its relevancy.

Besides Google AdWords, Yahoo, MSN and almost every search engine have their own form of search engine marketing. They all work in the same cost per click budgeting way. It’s an incredible tool that is both inexpensive (if you want it to be) and drives results. If you find any of this not to be true you can simply cancel your campaign and call it a day.

—

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

Imagine this; you roll out of bed around 9am, grab a shower, some breakfast, and head off to work… in your living room. Sounds like a dream come true, right? For any people it is. Working from home allows you to set your own hours, work at your own pace, and saves you from the everyday commute and daily grind. Success in this business is not that simple, however, and many fail working from home.

So, how do you know that working from home is right for you?

1. Can you get up each morning and say, “let’s get to work?” If so, you have the most important factor in the work at home business: self motivation. Without the motivation to do your job, you can’t generate the income, and therefore, cannot be successful working from home. For some, the income alone may be the motivation needed. For others, perhaps it the job itself. Whatever it is, it must be strong enough to get you going each day.

2. Can you work part-time? Full-time? Sporadically while the kids are napping? Time is a big facor in working from home. The daily time needed may vary, but plan on spending at least 3, uninterrupted hours on business each day. You must be able to concentrate on what you’re doing in order to do it efficiently. No distractions!

3. What are your income goals? Some online jobs may seem to pay more, but in comparison to on-site employment, may actually be paying less. If the work you’re doing from home is simply a second income, this may not be a factor for you. If you plan on a full time, at home career, some research is needed before jumping in.

4. Do you need the benefits taht come with on-site jobs? Medical insurance is something that everyone should have. You need to ask yourself if you can afford to purchase separate insurance while you work at home, or do you need the discounted rates provided by most employers?

5. Are you a social animal? Working from home might mean no commuting, but it also means no co-workers, no stories, and no “water cooler” gossip. Are you able to work not only independently, but completely alone? Working from home can affect you emotionally and psychologically. For some it may lead to depression from lack of social contact. Make sure you have ways around this before beginning to work from home.

6. Can you do the job? Are you interested in the topic of your work at home job than you are with your current office job? Just like on-site employment, you need to like your job to be successful. If you decide to work at home just to be home all day, then this might not be for you. Before you take an at home job, or start your won, make sure you’re in it for the long haul. Find something you feel motivated by, or something you can really get into.

If you can answer YES to these questions, then perhaps working from home is an ideal situation for you. Go ahead, find the job that’s right for you, sit back, relax, and give it a try. Good luck!

—

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.

It’s a scary thought. You may find yourself facing this decision at some point in the life of your online business. So how do you know if you’re ready to make the leap and quit your day job?

Some things to watch for:

1. Is your business consistently paying you enough to live on? If your business has great months, followed by a dramatic downturn in sales on a regular basis, you will have to do the math to find out if you are making enough money to support yourself without the added income of the extra job. If you find yourself in a situation where you have dedicated yourself full time to job that will not support you, you may end up losing the online business too.

2. Do you want to do this full-time? If you started your business with the ultimate goal of making it a full-time job and your sole source of income, this question is already answered. If you started it for extra income, you will need to decide if this is something you want to do full-time. The step forward in relying on this job may turn it from a fun hobby to a headache. Before you make the leap, decide if this is something you genuinely love to do.

3. Consider your product and the future of your success. If you are selling a product or service for a seasonal or short-term issue (such as a trendy Christmas item or a product that addresses a temporary event) you may want to consider what will happen to your sales once the event or season has passed. There may no longer be a need for your item or service. You obviously would not want to rely on such a projection as a full-time job.

4. Is it more work than you will be able to handle, even if you dedicate yourself to it full-time? If this is the case, you are faced with two options: You could quit your day job and work more hours than you’d intended to be able to support the company or you could keep your day job and hire help for your current work load. This is not an ideal position to be in, but it may be a situation you face at one point.

5. If your sales plummet, do you have a back-up plan? You may want to wait until you have money to support yourself for several month in case unforeseen events happen. It also does not hurt to have a few job ideas in mind in case the need arises. Owning a small business is a risk, but it should be a calculated risk.

I hope this helps in your decision to quit the day job or not. It is a big step in the life of any small business. Do not go into it without lots of consideration and planning.

—

You may reprint the above article in any publication online or offline as long as you do not modify it and give credit to Diego Norte as the author. No link is required, but links are always appreciated.