Today I really wanted to give you a window into my early life on line. You see, it’s easy to sit and to think ‘well, it’s ok for him (or her). He’s already got a business on line. He (or she) already makes “X” thousands a year on the internet.’

But here’s the thing! Everyone started somewhere… and here’s the other thing. There is no such thing as overnight internet success.

Every web entrepreneur I know worked at their business to make it what it is today! I still sometimes work into the early hours of the morning, and I know other web sellers do the same. Running a business on the net is not all sun and surf! Sometimes it’s plain old hard work, just like any other business.

Yeh! We all know about the flash kids who tell us about the ‘100.000’ list they built on line in only 24 hours’ or how they launched their latest program and raked in $1M in only 4 days. The truth of the matter is that every one of them was not starting from cold! Neither did they do it themselves, without the help of the internet community… and neither did they do it for free. They paid handsomely to make these figures happen, either in advertising, or in affiliate payouts.

My early days on the net were not as successful as I would have liked. My first website was for an ebook that I produced from a title in the public domain. The book was on Indian cooking (that’s Indian as in India, not as in Native American!) and I sold it around the $27 mark. I advertised it on Google Adwords, and waited for the sales to come rolling in.

Well, it bombed! I mean to this day I’ve made no sales. Why was this when I did everything right? I researched the market. I picked the right price point. I wrote the best copy I could using all the tried and tested techniques. Why did it bomb so badly? Well, I now know why. Because I was up against a constant stream of free content on the internet. Almost all of those searching for curry recipes and Indian food were looking for FREE information, not to buy!

This was my big mistake. I saw 100,000’s of searches on line and assumed that they all wanted my product. I was wrong. And this is one of the mistakes that a lot of new sellers on the internet make every day.

This is one of the biggest lessons I learned in the early days. If I had only taken the time to research what all these searchers were looking for online I could have avoided the hours and hours it took to produce the product, and the days it took to produce the website and the web copy.

Although it’s not glamorous or sexy, researching your market is one of the best and smartest things you can do before you start to produce your product.  I really doesn’t matter how much of a good idea the product is, if there’s no market for it then you can’t sell it. If no one wants to buy it then you don’t have a business, you only have an expensive lesson in marketing, and how not to do it.

So before you do anything else.

1. Make sure you have a product that people want to buy.

2. Make sure your market are comfortable buying on line, and

3. Make sure they have money to buy your product.

This last point means there is no point in pitching a $500 course on debt management to those who are heavily in debt. They simply can’t afford it!

Until next time

Ian Greenwood

Some people say that the only way to make good money is to work hard. No doubt that in the past, hard work was one way to get ahead. But even hard work wasn’t a guarantee of success. These days, in the age of technology, the internet has made making money easy. For some, all it takes is a computer and an internet connection to get a successful small business off the ground.

If you’ve spent any time online lately, you probably already know that blogs (short for “web logs”) and blogging are big. There are literally thousands and thousands of blogs online, and some of those bloggers are turning their daily posts into cash. These days bloggers aren’t working hard, instead they’re working smart and making money easily as they go. But how can a simple blog turn readers and clicks into cash? The answer is simple: affiliate marketing.

As you probably noticed I don’t use ad sense or affiliate links on my own blog here at Greenwood central! This is because I have taken the decision that this will be a no sell zone – at least for other peoples products. I don’t promote other products unless I’ve used them myself and been impressed and convinced by their power and ability. But because I’ve made this decision there’s no need for you not to make money from your blog!

You can earn fairly easy and steady income on your blog or web site through affiliate marketing. Here’s how it works: you provide links from your site to the sales pages of other online businesses. As an affiliate, you get a unique code that you embed in the links on your site.

If someone reading your site or blog clicks through to the merchant’s site, you’re making money easy because you get a portion of their purchase amount.

One of the most popular affiliate marketing programs is available through Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer. Amazon sells a huge variety of products, so it is very likely that you’ll find many items to link to at Amazon. Simply sign up for their affiliate program, receive your unique affiliate ID, and place the links on your blog.

One easy way to tap into the Amazon program is to start to promote books. As there are books on Amazon in almost every niche area you can think of then this would be a good place to start. If you can write short revues on your blog , then give the affiliate link to Amazon for the book you have just reviewed, there is a high chance that some of your readers will b go there to buy the book through your link – thus earning you some income.

It may seem like making money can be difficult, but if you spend a little time online, you should be able to find a number of affiliate programs you can use like this. By blogging like this you can turn your writing into cash. Consider affiliate marketing programs like those offered by Amazon and you could be adding to your income very quickly.

Other affiliate programs worth a look are Clickbank.com and  commission junction at http://www.cj.com or try an affiliate directory at http://www.affiliateprograms.com

Please note I do not have any affiliation with any of the sites mentioned here. I think they provide a good service and good products.

Until next time

Ian Greenwood

A lot of people often ask how to start selling on the internet with no product, no list and no website? A huge problem you might think but not so! This is how I started.

A good way for most people to start to make money on the internet is to sell stuff on eBay.  This isn’t just about selling your junk that you don’t need. It’s about making a business out of this profitable new venture! So how do you go about that? Well, let me tell you.

Some of you will know that one of my regular hobbies is selling on eBay. I’ve been doing it for years and I think it’s one of the best places on the net to ‘cut your teeth’ in internet marketing. You get to practice everything from copywriting to HTML – it’s like junior school for internet marketers!

A big part of this is the idea that one man’s garbage is another man’s gold. Even if you don’t want that GI Joe figure anymore, some avid collector out there’s probably willing to shell out a lot of cash for it.  That Playstation you have could be a classic to some people. Even a simple collectable card could be worth thousands of dollars to the right person.  You can take advantage of the nature of this niche buying habit when you sell stuff on eBay.

One of the best and most lucrative ways to start to build a list of customers is to sell niche related goods on eBay. By this I mean if you are in the sea fishing niche you would want to sell goods that would attract sea fishing enthusiasts. These can either be fishing gear, paraphernalia etc, or you could sell related information products. The information products route is the way I would advise. If you have an ebook (about sea fishing in this case) then this is the best place to start.

You need to  sell copies of your ebook on CD ROM. You have to do it this way so you are sending out an actual physical disc – eBay wont allow you to fulfil your ebook as a digital download.

But this is not the problem that most eBayers think it is. You see, you’re fulfilling the same product again and again to sea fishing enthusiasts. So every package you send out is the same weight and size. After you have sent one out you know exactly how much the postage and packing will cost you next time. You can just send out every other one at the same cost, and drop them straight into the post box – no hassle, no post office queues , no weighing or calculating.

Sending out your discs like this is beneficial to your business because they are easy to reproduce as required. They are also cheep to buy and store. You only need to stock a few blank discs and cases, and a few padded envelopes. You can easily use your home computer to run off copies as you need them.

Even if you didn’t want to tackle any of this process for yourself then you could easily give this job to someone else. It’s not hugely technical or difficult to understand. A teenager, or work-at-home friend or relative, would be happy to do it for a small consideration, for every order sent out.

But… the biggest benefit of selling like this is you get all the contact information about your customer right up front. You get their email address, and you get their physical address. You can follow up with other offers, and other services.  And you can sell like this to the whole world building a global list of interested niche buyers!

I’m not going to tell you how many discs I send out in the week or how many niches I sell to on eBay just using this system. But I will tell you it’s a lot! Building a list this way and getting paid to do it is a ‘no brainer.’

I cannot imagine why anyone would not want to bring this into their marketing mix. So get started by selling a simple ebook in your own niche on eBay and enjoy the process, the profits and the experience. And get paid to build your own list of hungry buyers.

Until next time

Ian Greenwood

When you’re trying to figure out how to get traffic to your website or blog, there are a lot of options to consider. So, it’s important that you pick the ones that go well with the product or service you’re offering and your target audience.

Using Ezines to promote your products is a fantastic way to hit the right audience because there’s probably an ezine for every niche possible! There are even ezines about ezines! If you want to save a lot of time doing your own research for the possible ezines to fit your niche, you can use ezine directories.

In case you’re unfamiliar with ezines, they are basically an electronic newsletter that is sent out to a subscriber list who has said they want to receive it. If you find one that matches the niche your business is in, you’re guaranteed a qualified audience to advertise to. The best way to reach this audience is by placing what is called an Ezine Solo Ad. This basically means that the producer of the ezine will send out your text ad to his/her audience for a price. In order to find the right ezines, you can go through ezine directories and do a search for the keywords or keyword phrases that represent your business to find a targeted ezine that you can advertise in.

Here are a few of the many directories that you can take a look at:

http://new-list.com offers a wide variety of general categories and thousands of thousands of specific newsletters to choose from within these categories.

http://www.ezinesearch.com allows you to type in the general category that pertains to your business, a description and some keywords. Once you’ve entered this information, you are taken to the results of your search and can get more information about what each ezine offers, the size of its mailing list, the frequency of the mailings, etc.

http://bestezines.com has thousands of ezines to display along with reviews and complete information about each ezine including the target audience, frequency of the newsletter, tags and how many times the ezine has been viewed.

http://www.ezine-dir.com offers an impressive list of ezines within a fair number of topics but does not provide you with the details on each. In any case, it is always better to contact the publisher of an ezine directly to verify statistics, price, etc. of the ezine.

http://www.jogena.com/ezine/ezinedata.htm I have to be honest – this is one ugly website but… it offers both a listing of ezines and a listing of e-books, which is a nice twist. This site is very well-done and offers a great deal of information on both topics, in a way that is clear and easy to understand.

Hopefully these ezine directories will hold some of the information you’re looking for! They represent more advertising  possibilities than you could possibly use in the next 10 years so get doing and get some advertising in now!

Until next time

Ian Greenwood

Last time I began this rather lengthy piece on why video would never replace text articles on line.

This is the completeion of that theme. In this section I’ll discuss the more technical reasons why this is unlikely – at least in the short to medium term.

4. Web pages are designed around text content.

The conception of HTML code was specifically for text documents. This means that webpages naturally and easily incorporate text content. This process is easily within the grasp of most amateur web designers, and naturally means that most will have the ability, after a little basic study, to construct their own website with text content.

Video on the other hand needs specialist knowledge to shoot, produce and to make available on a web page. Basic web skills just wont cut it when you have to deal with Flash video content, SWF objects for players, and Javascript to lock the elements together. You may even be called upon to adapt your cascading style sheet to change the look of your final video content.

In this way basic HTML was never designed to show video. It has to have huge additional help to incorporate video content whether embedded or streamed. This means that video will be out of the grasp of many who would want to show video on their website, unless specialist technical help is available.

5. Web video is not “standard” content.

Until web video is standardised across the web not everyone attached to the web will be able to view it. If you don’t have the correct player installed, or the right video codec, then you could be unable to view every web video you come across.

By videoing your web content you could be closing the door on some, or even most, of your audience. If they don’t have their computers set up to decode your particular brand of video you could be wasting your time providing it in this media!

Text content does not suffer from this problematic delivery. Unless you chose a particularly obscure type face, your website will display more or less as you intended. So long as your audience has basic reading skills then you can almost guarantee that they will be able to access your content.

6. Video files are huge in comparison to text.

Text files take up such small amounts of space on computer storage that they are hardly even noticeable. On the net they transfer in seconds, and download on a broadband connection in the blink of an eye. They are easy and quick to attach to email, and you can carry hundreds, or even thousands of text files, on portable media.

Video files, in comparison, are huge, clumsy and resource hungry. There have even been services, especially on line, invented and designed just to handle video, and to stream it to end users. Backing up video content is resource hungry and time consuming at best. You cannot handle, store or transfer uncompressed video files with anything approaching the same ease as text.

So, will video replace text on the web? Will the internet become a massive television channel? Well, probably not for the foreseeable future. One thing is certain – video is not pushing articles into obscurity just yet – so get writing!

Hope you enjoyed this!

Until next time

Ian Greenwood