Many online marketers who were using PPC as their main method of generating leads have had to re think their marketing strategy. The problem for many advertisers started with the Google  AdWords ‘ Slap’, this is when Google started to shut down advertisers in the online home business niche. Many moved over to  Yahoo PPC for their advertising needs, this worked well for a while but  when Yahoo were taken over by Microsoft ads many home business advertisers faced  the same problems as they had with Google AdWords.

Social network sites  such as Facebook have become the preference for  the  home business owner who is looking to advertise online and now  there is talk of the ‘Face Slap’ that will again throw up some new challenges for online marketers.

So what are the options for the home business owner?

Well although there are still plenty of  other effective  advertising methods available, it is  now  SEO or search engine optimization that has become the latest  buzzword for marketers. Although setting up a  website in your chosen niche will give you more control, there is always the problem of driving  enough traffic to your site to generate those quality leads all marketers need as the life blood  for  their  home business.

Getting your website to the first page on Google might seem difficult when you are faced with so much competition in the home business niche,but  it is not impossible when you start to learn & put in to place the right SEO techniques.The great advantage of using SEO is that once you are positioned high in the rankings this in effect becomes free advertising, of course you will need to maintain your site or blog with quality relevant content &  links to stay well positioned but the work you put in now will bring rewards in the future.

Well yes of course they are all hugely successful…….but they also  have something else in common…..they  have all had  a mentor  to help & guide them.

Everyone has to start somewhere &  all of these talented people have  had their struggles over the years to become the success they are today, but something that makes them stand out is the fact  they have all been wise enough to find a  mentor to help guide them through the pitfalls.

Now if you are  just starting out trying to make a living from your own web business then it certainly makes sense to find a mentor to help you succeed in your business.It can be a long & lonely road to making a decent income online, so it makes perfect sense to track down a successful person who has learned the lessons of how to make a web business work, someone who has overcome all of the obstacles you are now facing & someone who will help you make progress in your business, making sure you don’t quit when  you hit your  first problem.

Over the last few months  I have  had the good fortune to  come  across a guy called Chris Farrell, who not only has  an amazing talent for making money online but he is aslo very talented at teaching people  how to start a successful web business.His methods are very easy to follow with detailed step by step instructions & he gives away a ton of free content on his membership site. He has recently launched a new product called Chris Mentor Me, now Chris makes a very bold claim that everyone will make money in 6 weeks or he will refund the total cost of the training .One thing that is well known on the internet is the honesty & integrity of  Chris Farrell, he  has one of the best reputations in this industry. So when he gives a guarantee, then you know  he is  the one  person who  can be trusted to  stick  with his promise.

If Chris Mentor Me is anything like  the Chris Farrell membership site  then it will always  over deliver for the price being asked.

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 Because you have been promised quick results by the person promoting the opportunity you have joined,  then you would naturally  expect  to start seeing  those quick results either in the first couple of weeks or months. Of course most times it doesn’t work like that & disappointment will set in very fast,along  with high expectations there is always the flip side of  feeling like you’re flogging a dead horse  & getting nowhere fast, this is the point when most will quit & probably never return again to the promised land of easy online riches.

So what has really gone wrong for the newbie marketer? Is it the product  they are trying to sell that sucks, is this really  the problem? Well probably not, a lot of other people could be selling that same product successfully, it’s just the newbie marketer hasn’t really mastered the basics of selling online. Anyone  wanting to succeed online must have a formula, blueprint or step by step guide, whatever you want to call it there is a formula that  all successful marketers use. This light-bulb moment clicked for me when I first found a great teacher by the name of Chris Farrell, he sticks by the principal that there are only 3 steps to making online, quite simply this.

1. Find a profitable niche online. ( Example: Where people are already spending their money.)

2.Build a list. ( Example: Build a database of  names & email addresses of these interested people by offering free content.)

3. Market related products  to your  list. ( Example: Offer these same people free advice & information & products they want to buy from you.)

Once you have put down these 3 important foundations then the money will start to flow.In fact the income is the last thing to come, this is where the get rich plans fail because they are promising the money first, so this is why most newbies are doing things back to front. Anyone who has researched this industry will have heard this phrase come up time & time again, “The Money is in the List” & it’s true this is where you will get your income from, it comes from repeat customers & people who want to buy from you, so until you target your ideal customer then it will be very hard to sell your products or services  online. If you would like to learn more about the  3 steps to making money online I can recommend the Chris Farrell Membership, Chris explains that  marketing online can be easy to learn &  what is  even more refreshing there is no hype about making money quick, just a realistic approach to earning a modest income within a few weeks & then scaling out these methods to increase your income over time. At last an honest &  common sense approach to starting a web based business from scratch.

So why do companies pay for online surveys?

Well the main reason is that marketing is big business and if companies can find out more about our buying habits then they can target the right products to different groups of people. This will save them considerable costs on advertising by only focusing on the right type of buyers before running advertising campaigns.

So are you qualified to take these online surveys?

Well really just about anyone is suitable. The reason for this is the fact that companies want, young and old, male or female, people from different parts of the world, they want a cross section of people to find out who is their ideal customer for a particular product. As well as knowing the type of customer they might also want to know your opinions on certain products or services, so they can improve these in the future.

What sort of earnings can you expect from paid surveys?

Well it’s unlikely you will earn enough to retire on or buy a yacht, but you can certainly earn a small additional income that could be saved up over the year and used to pay for some luxuries, like a holiday for example or just to supplement your main income to help pay some bills.

Remember it can take a while to build up the commissions and you might only get paid monthly,also some companies will only pay out  when you have reached a certain level. This is why it’s very important not to give up too soon or you might not get paid anything  if you quit before reaching the required payment point.

It’s quite easy to get started with ’Paid Online Surveys’ so if you are looking to earn some extra cash or even get discounts or vouchers  on certain products, then  just about anyone can do this in their spare time and get reasonable results.

At first it might look difficult to  turn your material  into a great looking PDF download, but is it really that hard to do.

So what are the basic components of a successful ebook?

Most people who have written articles & blogs  probably already have some great  original material to draw upon, so most of the hard work such as  the content & theme of the book will almost be ready to put together as an ebook.

For your first project a short report is a good starting point, 6-10 pages can be quite easy to put together as a useful guide or report.

The content of the book can be written as a word document & then pasted into a simple graphics program where you can put in some great looking clip-art & graphics.

 Although a lot of ebook graphics & covers are produced in software such as Photoshop ,there are other lower cost & easy to use options where you can design your own great looking ebook cover ,without the need to learn how to use complicated graphics software, so it’s not always necessary to invest in a $300 program that you might only use once or twice.

Most word processors will give the option to publish your work as a PDF document, when your ebook is then downloaded onto another persons computer the PDF  will open up in Adobe Acrobat Reader, this is usually  installed on most computers & if not is readily available as a free download.

Let’s take the first reason, ‘Blogging for Fun’, this is usually when you have an interest or view you would like to share with others, maybe you can help others with your personal  knowledge on your chosen  subject.People who blog for fun, or blog to share their interests will  very often have more passion in what they write about, they are not looking to make a profit from their blogging so they will probably post more often, as new ideas start to  flow they probably can’t wait to sit down and   share this with their readers.This type of blogger will usually produce more fresh & interesting content that their regular subscribers will look forward to reading each time a new post appears.

Now ‘ Blogging for profit’ can be more challenging if you want to keep your posts fresh.To  be effective it  should really  have the same level of passion  there is for blogging just for fun, this is where the blogger who is trying to promote a business opportunity or affiliate offer through their posts needs to have a genuine interest in what they are trying to promote.The content of their post also needs to be congruent with their offer, so if you are trying to promote an affiliate offer for network marketing then it makes no sense to be writing about gardening in your post, it’s very important to target your niche  market so always  make the content of your post relevant to what you are trying to sell or promote.

So  whatever your reasons are always try to  make your writing enjoyable, if you are really interested in what you are posting then your readers will probably be more interested too.Once you start to enjoy blogging  and have a true passion for it, then your posts will probably be more frequent, with fresher quality content  and  more  up to date which helps to attract visitors to your blog and will also improve your ranking  on the search engines.

So the big question is this, should you try to learn SEO  & do it yourself or call in the experts to sort it out for you. Now I’ve always gone through life with the belief we should all have a go at fixing things ourselves, after all it’s never been easier to get ‘How to’ information on the internet.There is a great sense of achievement when the penny drops & you finally understand how something works, so if you feel confident enough to try then why not.Let’s face it there is a ton of free content out there to draw upon on just about any subject we can think of, but the difficult part of understanding any subject is putting all the information together to make it workable, even with the help of the Internet this can take a lot of our time, so if  we have plenty of time on our hands to study, but very little money then perhaps it is best to work it out on your own. But  this is where we have to decide as bloggers or marketers where our time will be spent more effectively, if for example our talents lie in writing good content & we enjoy that part of our business, but we are lacking in more technical skills then it must make sense to outsource those jobs that frustrate us. Finding  good SEO advice can be difficult as there are so many companies offering this service, one I can highly recommend is  SEO networker , here you will find lots of really cool content that will help push your blog or website higher up the search engine rankings.

With most business models, offline or online, you will need to spend money to make more money.After all if you were say  running a store for example, you would first  need to buy stock at wholesale prices & then re sell it at retail prices to make a profit.You would also need to spend money on marketing your products to drive paying  customers to your store.So why is the idea of spending money to market an online business opportunity any different to that of a bricks & mortar business.The main reason that new  marketers find these costs so difficult to swallow is the fear of losing or wasting money on an advertising campaign that doesn’t work or fails to produce any leads or sales, any successful business person will tell you that at some point in their business life they have lost money on advertising that hasn’t worked. Although this is a a hard lesson to learn, it’s very important that we do learn from these mistakes. One way to avoid making too many costly mistakes is by always making sure to test & tweak any new advertising campaigns before spending too much, only  then, once you are sure something is working should you then scale it out to get bigger results.

 Although it’s true that there are lots of effective   free methods of  getting traffic to our website or blog, the reality is that to get the level of  traffic that will convert to sales will probably mean using paid  advertising, this could be PPC ads , banners or lists & these will all cost money.So anyone starting a web based business should really be looking at their advertising costs as a very important part of their strategy & should always include these costs in their planning. Most of the top marketing gurus will be spending thousands of dollars each year on paid advertising to get the results that the new marketer can only dream of, all of the  top  earners know the important secret of  putting back a percentage of their  profits into their next advertising campaign. Although this can be very frustrating for the new marketer with a limited budget ,always try to remember that all of  the successful  gurus were newbies once with limited resources, but by testing & tracking their  advertising they have learned how to get good value for the money they spend.

The idea of building an online  reputation is of course important, to be recognised for your quality content & service to others is something all successful network marketers work hard at achieving. They know that potential customers will probably check  up on their credibility by searching on Google to see  not only if the opportunity or product lives up to expectations but the person behind it actually knows his or her stuff & is not just some fly by night scammer passing off a poor quality product. As they say ‘People buy from people’, but more importantly they also buy from people they like & trust.

As repeat customers are  the life blood of any business, online or offline then getting people to like & trust you is very important. For many years I used a very  reliable mechanic to service my car, sadly  about 2 years ago he retired & I had to find another garage to use. After having a couple of bad experiences with poor service from other garages & being overcharged for work I was getting quite frustrated, but  finally I found a mechanic that was as skilled as my original guy, but more importantly this new mechanic was  really friendly & helpful, his rates are reasonable & he collects & delivers my car back to me free of charge.When I next have a problem with my car or need a service there is only one garage I need to go to, in fact even  if my new mechanic puts up his rates I will still use him because I know he’s one of the good guys.

Now I’m not sure if my mechanic knows much about personal  branding, probably not, but he  certainly does know what his customers want, that is honesty, good service, reliability, good value & as an added bonus he has a unique selling point with his free collection service.This guy will never have to worry about repeat business & I’m sure he gets a lot more business from recommendations by his satisfied existing customers.

I guess this is very similar to  the way Google dealt with similar products, as most people know this resulted in the ‘Slap’ that a lot of dodgy network marketers suffered from. Naturally there was a lot of resentment from honest marketers who got caught up in the ‘Slap’ who also had their AdWords accounts shut down, even though they were selling  good  quality products & delivering a great service with excellent content.

Over the years Clickbank has been a great low cost way for newbies to get started in affiliate marketing, so it will be a shame if they over react with their new terms of service, so  let’s hope it doesn’t affect the honest hard working marketers who do deliver a quality information product & just want to find a low cost way of getting started in a home based business.

What all  good marketers know is that nothing ever stays the same, the rules are always changing, the Internet is constantly evolving  & we all have to keep up with any  new trends &  be more creative in the way we do business. These challenges have always been there for marketers even before the Internet existed,  there were similar shifts in advertising techniques used in Newspapers, Radio, Cinema & TV.

If you have just paid out several hundred dollars for an opportunity & then you are told that you really need to position yourself higher to really earn the big bucks in a high  priced ticket product & not only that, but you  have just 7 days to make a decision or the price goes up, well to be honest this can be a real turn off for most people, of course some will buy into the promise of a great income from the higher priced product  but many will probably run for the hills &  be demanding a refund for the original opportunity they had first bought into, which they actually thought would give them the 6 figure income they were looking for without having to pay out several thousand more on top of their original investment.

Although it’s basically true that by selling a high priced item you have to make less sales to get the high income we are all chasing & that’s OK for more experienced marketers, but is it really right for newbie marketers who have a lot of study & learning  to do before they reach the ‘Guru’ level that will give them the ability to sell such expensive products. Unless you have come from a sales or marketing background when you join any online business opportunity, then you really need to get the right skills first, it really is a case of learn to walk before you can run. After all most of the top marketers will tell you the money is in the list, so shouldn’t you be building your  list first & honing your marketing skills before you try to sell such expensive products.