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Have you been trying to decide which work at home business is right for you?

Well here’s your chance to find out by checking out my FREE CD to see if starting an online store is right for you.

Check out my new course that is now available.  StartAnOnlineStore.com This is an 18 week course that teaches everything you need to know to start an online store and build it into a booming business.  You can check it out by ordering the free cd to find out what the course covers and that includes a free 14-day trial of the course so you can decide if this course is what you were looking for before you spend any money on it.

I cover everything you need to know for getting an online store up and running on a limited budget and building it into a successful business.  Taught from my own experience as online store owner(Barefoot Bella Children’s Boutique) this course will help you avoid the costly mistakes that some people make when first starting out online.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

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Filed under: Basic Skills for online businesses, Work at home resources, work at home moms by busmoms - 3 Comments →

When developing a business in todays world you really need to find a way to make yourself stand out from the crowd.  You need to relate to your customer on a personal level and find ways to convey your qualities as a business to them to build trust and an ongoing relationship.  Here are a few ways to start building that relationship.

1. Provide relevant informative information on an ongoing basis showing that you are an authority in your industry.  You could do this by blogging, having a newsletter, social networking, etc…the key is to be informative, trustworthy,  and helpful.
2. Using video to build a relationship with your customers is a very powerful tool.  When doing business online sometimes it is hard for customers to establish a relationship unless they can really feel like they have met you in person and gotten to know a little about your personality.  Video can do this for you.  Use video on your blog and on YouTube to get your brand out there.
3. Building relationships with other successful people in your industry or niche is a tremendous way to establish a powerful brand.  Don’t ever underestimate the power of relationships–some of the best business ventures are achieved when you combine two like minded individuals with the same goals combing their knowledge and effort.
4. Find your Unique Selling Point and market that to your customer.  Why is your brand better or different than your competitors and why should the customer choose you over someone elses business–let them know why.
5. Let your happy customers build your brand for you.  Use customer testimonials and reviews to help build trust with your potential customers.

Be consistent with your brand building and most importantly be authentic!

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Adding Google Analytics to your wordpress blog is a great way to keep track of your progress.  This is the best way to see where your visitors are coming from and how many people are visiting your website.

For someone who is not very technical when it comes to working with websites adding google analytics to your website may seem overwhelming–but trust me once you have a step by step instruction on how to do it–it is very easy–and well worth the effort.

Steps On How To Add Google Analytics To Your Wordpress Blog

1. Download the Google Analytics Plugin to your desktop and unzip the plugin
2. Upload the plugin into your websites wp-content/plugins folder in your cpanel hosting account
3. In your wordpress blog’s dashboard under plugins activate the google analytics plugin–you should receive a success message once complete.
4. Go to your google account and login to http://google.com/analytics
5. To set up your new website in the google analytics account–click on add website profile
6. Then click on add profile for a new domain
7. Enter the URL of your website and select the appropriate country and time zone.
8. Google Analytics will then provide you with a block of html code–copy this code
9. Then go to your wordpress blog admin–under appearance–edit–go to the footer php section and paste the code into the footer right before the <body>tag on the page.  You can add this code to any webpage that you want to track on your site the same way.
10. Go back to your google analytics profile and check the status to see if it was added correctly.

Those are the basics–if you have any questions or problems you can always contact me or there are also some quick instructions on setting it up in your google analytics account area.  Good Luck!

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There are a few important basics that everyone should know when it comes to keyword research and search engine optimization for their website.  I wanted to  review a few of them here just to get you started out right with SEO.

Search engine optimization is probably the most important factor their is when it comes to making a website successful. Keyword research isn’t the only factor but it definately holds a lot of weight in getting targeted traffic to your website.  As we all know without targeted traffic your website won’t get too far.

So all that being said here are some of the key points to good keyword research for SEO.

• Keyword Research—Good targeted keywords are essential when starting your SEO research.  If you optimize your site for the wrong keywords you will never see the results you are looking for. I use a website called http://www.seobook.com for my keyword research.  They have a free tool you can type your keywords into to see how many people are searching for your particular keyword on a daily basis.
• Use longtail keywords when picking keywords to research and use.  Longtail means a keyword phrase instead of just one keyword.  This will help your keywords to be alot more targeted then just a general topic.  For an example–if someone wanted to learn how to bake a chocolate chip cake–they wouldn’t just type in chocolate cake for their search–they would most likely type in “how to bake a chocolate chip cake”.  So their search would be alot more targeted.
• The general rule for keyword density in your blog posts, articles,  and/or product descriptions is 3-5%.  Meaning for every 100 words of your article you should use your keyword 3 -5 times.
• Use <h1> header tags and place your keyword phrase within those tags.
• Use your main keyword in the <title> tags of the website.
• Use your keywords in your title of your blog posts and articles.
• Bold some of your keywords throughout your copy.
• Use <alt>image tags and place your keyword within the tag.
• Place your keyword once at the beginning of your copy and once at the end of the copy.

Hopefully this will get you started out right when you start your keyword research and SEO for your website.

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When promoting your business or product online are you doing it in a way that your potential customers can find you?

The internet is a big place—I mean enormous place!  It has no boundaries–and if you aren’t careful you can definately get lost in the sea of never-ending websites.

Here is a quick list of ways you can make sure your potential customer can find you.

• Do Your keyword research! This is definately the most important thing to start with.  Think about what kind of terms your potential customer would use to find your product and then research it at  http://www.seobook.com to see if a lot of other people use that term to look for a product like yours.    Then use those keywords in your product descriptions, page titles, sales pages, etc…
• Link to relevant and complimentary sites that will link back to you in return.  Examples would be if you are selling children’s clothes try to have a link to your site on blogs that talk about children’s fashions.  You can also get listed in relevant directories that are related to what you are selling.
• Start a Blog talking about topics related to your product.  Continually add helpful and relevant content that your potential customer will be interested in–and have a link back to your main website that is selling your product.

• Use Web 2.0 sites to find your target customer and build a relationship with them through your posts.  An example of this would be to start using Twitter,  follow others that are interested in your niche or product, provide relevant and helpful information, and build a relationship!

These are just a few of the ways you can help your customers find you.  Don’t forget to put yourself in your customers shoes.  How do you find what you are looking for when you search online? Put yourself and your product in front of your potential customer in as many places as possible.

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The best thing I ever did for my business is “learn the basics” of running a business from home online.  When I say learn the basics I mean basic skills that really go along way for saving you money in the long run.  When I first started out online I really knew nothing when it came to do with setting things up on the back end.  I paid a fortune to a web designer to set up my first site “Barefoot Bella” and the Blog that compliments it the “Barefoot Bella Blog“–and don’t get me wrong they are  beautiful and work great.  In the end it was worth it because it got me started in business and it has been very successful.  But now that I know what I know now I would have probably done things differently and would be a lot further ahead in the game because I would have saved a ton of money.

I am not discouraging you from outsourcing things because lets face it we can’t all do everything ourselves– there is only so many hours in the day and if you want to be a true entrepreneur than you will definately want to outsource certain things so you can focus on building your business.  But I do highly encourage you in the beginning to learn the basics–so at least when you do get to a point where it makes since to outsource you know what to look for and expect from the quality of work you will be paying for.

So back to the basics.  There are a few key things that you must absolutely understand before starting out online and I will just give you a basic list to get you started.

• Pick a profitable niche—researching and deciding which niche to go into is important to get right from the beginning because lets face it the whole reason you are in business is to make money and if no one is interested in what you are selling than you will have a hard time making any money from it.
• Research and pick the right keywords to promote your site so people will be able to find you online.  You can have the best site in the world but if no one can find you it will be worthless to them and you
• Pick a domain name that relates to your keywords and niche(I recommend www.GoDaddy.com for buying domains).  If you are selling dog biscuits pick a name like dogbiscuits.com not one like fidosfood.com.  The closer your domain name is to your keywords and niche the more likely someone will be able to find your site.
• Find a good hosting company.  There are some great hosting companies out there that are inexpensive and have all the capabilities you will need to start out and grow your business when you are ready to expand.  My recommended hosting company is HostGator.  It is pretty inexpensive and gives you unlimited ways to expand.
• Learn to set up your own blog.  I paid for my first two blogs to be set up by someone else and they turned out great–but then I read this FREE report on how to set up my own blog and was absolutely amazed at how simple it was.  I set up a blog in about an hour and also learned a skill that I can offer other businesses that are looking for that service.
• Learn to set up your own website to sell products–or find an affordable company to do it for you.  Nowadays you can have a website set up and ready to sell pretty easily at a really affordable price.  There are even some programs with ready made templates and easy instructions to walk you through the whole process.  So before you go to a web design company and pay a fortune for them to do it all for you–do your research–you may find that all you need is just a simple way to get your product out there and it doesn’t have to cost a fortune to do it.  But don’t get me wrong there are definately times when hiring someone to design your site makes since but just make sure you do your research to find what will work best for your individual project and what makes since for your budget.
• Learn the basics of search engine optimization.  When you are posting to your blog or adding products to your site to sell make sure you do it in a way that is search engine friendly–it will really do wonders for your rankings and help to get you more traffic to your site if done correctly.
• Find a good autoresponder service plan and start building a list.  I recommend Aweber.  The best thing I ever did for my business is start building a list of customers interested in my products.  Building a relationship with your customers is the best way to get repeat customers because you earn their trust by being reliable and resourceful in the area that they are interested in.
• Learn the basics of driving quality traffic to your site.  If no one visits your site no one can buy from you–so one of the most important things you can learn is how to get traffic and make sure it is quality traffic.  You really only want people who are interested in what you have to offer to visit your site because they are the people who will become your customers.  So find people interested in your niche and get them to your site.  Some basic ways of doing that would be to visit forums related to your niche and get involved in the conversations, use web 2.0 sites to find people interested in your niche,  advertise in areas that you know people in your niche visit.

There are many other aspects of running an online business from home but the items listed above are the core basic skills that are a must when it comes to starting out on the right foot and continuing on your road to success.  I will be adding some resources soon to help you learn these basic skills.  Or if you would like to subscribe to our email list you can receive free tips for building your online business right to your email in box on a weekly basis.

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