"In the Trenches" Approach To Growing Your Business Online…. Even If You Don't have One Yet!
- By Lou Harty

I have spent over 20 years in the Australian Army, and one thing I did carry over into my civilian life was the importance of sticking to basics. Basics are the foundation of everything.

Whatever you build or create needs to have a strong foundation. With a strong foundation you can grow your business until it becomes an impenetrable tower. From there you can add more bricks for more growth. Running and operating a profitable, sustainable long-term business is exactly the same.

Over 8000 people start an Internet based business online everyday. However only 4% of those go on to become a long-term profitable businesses. There are a number of ways that you can be in the top 4%. Firstly you need to have the right Mindset.

MINDSET:

When stating an Internet business you need to adopt the right mindset and ask yourself:
- Why do I want an online business?
- How badly do I want this?
- What are my goals for an online business?
- Can I adapt to changes easily?
- I need to full responsibility for this?

One of Napoleon Hills success principles is "Desire"…Now having a strong burning desire to succeed is great, but having that desire alone is not going to help you get started. You need to take action and continue to grow with your business. Growing mentally and commercially, particularly when faced with obstacles. Remind yourself of the reasons you want this business to be successful.

The following are two case studies, each with individual desires and goals. This case study will show you the steps each will need to take in order to achieve their desired outcome.

Let me introduce you to Ken and Barbie. Both want to start an Internet based business. Firstly lets look at kens reasons for wanting this.

Kens Story:

Ken has a small gardening business. His needs are simple. He wants more customers, more money and wants his business to expand nation wide. He has no idea how to run an Internet business and is prepared to hire a team of experts to operate his business online. Ken doesn't want to do the work and is happy to outsource.

Outsourcing is increasingly becoming a key business strategy and is a great way to leverage your time and help grow quickly. If you are not an expert then hire people who are.
Many people waste time trying to learn all about online marketing techniques only to give up. If you have a team of experts you can simply tell them what you need and let them do the rest.

HOW TO OUTSOURCE

If you do a Google search for the term "outsourcing" you will find an endless stream of companies who are more than willing to assist you. You can also use Elance, Rentacoder and ReplaceMyself.

SELECTING A TEAM

Its recommended to initially hire 2-3 different people and task them and see who does the best job. Ideally if you are dealing with an overseas outsource team you want them to be able to speak English clearly to eliminate any miscommunication.

If this seems a bit daunting, then you can hire a Virtual Assistance (VA). The VA will find a suitable team based off your requirement. The VA can take care of the monitoring of task, the cost and can manage your account for you.

Here is a list of tasks for Kens VA to outsource:

WEBSITE CREATION
• Design
• Installation
• Maintenance
• Installing blogs & plugins
• Moderating blog comments

CONTENT CREATION

• Article writing and distribution
• Video and audio creation and distribution
• Bonus offers
• Info product creation

TRAFFIC GENERATION

• Article creation
• Article distribution
• Blog commenting
• Video media
• Audio media
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Pay Per Click advertising (PPC)
• Building back links
• Social Networking

COST OF OUTSOURCING

Outsourcing costs are relatively low in comparison to normal hiring and staff costs in Australia. Most outsourcing is done overseas in countries like The Philippines, India and Europe. Some are as low as $3- 4 an hour. Or you may prefer to hire a full time person for as little as $200 - $400 a month depending on the company you use.

Once ken has an outsourced team he can then focus on building client relations and providing a better gardening service for his clients.

Barbie's Story

Barbie is a stay at home mum who trades the markets electronically. She earns a great income from her day job. Barbie wants another stream of income and likes the idea of running an online business from home, however she doesn't have a product or service to sell. Barbie wants to learn all facets of Internet marketing as she has the time to be creative.

Barbie doesn't have a product or service to sell. But learns that she can make money from promoting other peoples products. Jill joins the trading company's online affiliate program.

Here are the steps she will take:

STEP 1: Join an affiliate program
An affiliate program is where you receive a commission from making referrals. Barbie will receive $500 for each referral.

Upon joining Barbie receives a unique affiliate ID that is tracked to all her referrals. So now Barbie has a ready made website and can focus on getting customers to the site.

STEP 2: Buy a domain name

As Barbie one day wants to become an expert trader and would like to create her own trading blog helping other mums become better traders, Barbie buys her own name. www.yourName.com. She also buys another domain name that is keyword rich and related to the product she's promoting which is trading. She then redirects or points her affiliate link to the new domain names.

STEP 3: RESEARCH

Market research is where you will need to find if there is a demand for your products. There are number of ways to market research. You can visit authority sites of where people go to find good information, e.g. Forums, blogs etc on your topic. Search Google Trends and Google Insights, EBay Pulse and authority sites like Oprah.

Keyword research is finding the keywords that people are search for, what people are actually typing into the search engines. There are number of free research tools online.

STEP 4: CONTENT CREATION TRAFFIC

You want to become an authority in your market, and therefore will need to position and brand yourself. You want to offer your readers and subscribers relevant and awesome content on your subject. Soon you will have a following of people and they will see you as the expert. The next step is creating the content and driving traffic to your website.

There are three types of traffic online. Free, Paid and Borrowed.

Free traffic is in the form of written content such as Article, forum, blogs, and social network sites. You can visit blogs and forums and join discussion groups in your niche and make comments and link your comment back to your website.

Paid traffic includes Google Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. This is where the business owner pays every time someone clicks on his or her ad. The ads are displayed on the right hand column and on top of search engines. The other content in search engines is known as organic listing. Ideally you want to own the first few pages of Google's organic listing in your market.

ARTICLES

Articles are a great way of getting the word out. People go online for information. So begin by writing articles on various topics relating to your product. In Kens business he would write articles relating to gardening such as best soils to use to grow grass or the best time of the year to plant tomatoes and so on. Barbie would write articles relating to trading, this can include trading psychology, trading systems and money management.

You can either write the article yourself or have them written for you by using outsourcing or paid services. Once you have your articles you will need to place them on your website or blog and then distribute them.

ARTICLE SUBMISSION

Submit your articles into article directories such as EzineArticles, GoArticles so others can read them, share them and use them on their own sites. This will then become viral, as others will also share your content.

DISTRIBUTION

Once your articles have been submitted into article directories you want these to be distributed across the Internet. Ensure you have a link in your article pointing back to your site. Two links are betters, one for a video and one for your site. This is usually placed in the Bio or resources box. This again can be done manually which is time consuming, or you can use a paid service using sites like ISnare, SubmitYourArticle, AutoArticleMarketing, and many others available online.

MULTIMEDIA

The Internet has allowed users around the world multiple ways of gathering information. People can read about it, watch it, listen to it, share it and best of all; download it. Google loves media rich websites including the following:
• Video
• Audio
• Picture, images
• PDF
• Google likes to display media rich content

VIDEO

Create a series of videos on your subject. You don't need an expensive camera for this. Some of the world's highest viewed videos are made with your trusty mobile phone or digital camera. You only have to visit YouTube to the most viewed videos. Get filmed talking about your product

• Ken could do a series of videos on the content he used in his articles, organic vegies in WA and the best lawn for tropical climates.
• Barbie could do videos on the mindset of traders, and a beginners guide to juggling family and trading.
• Submit your videos into media sharing sites such as You tube, Viddler and Tubemogul.
• Create videos in a MS PowerPoint presentation and record it in Camtasia or Screenflow
• Add images in your videos
• Use automated professional videos like http://www. ClickAnimoto

AUDIO

Audio is a popular way to also get your message online. You can go and buy a Dictaphone or recording device. They range from $50 - $400 and can record voice for up to 10hours, depending on the model.

- Record yourself reading your article, or talking candidly about your product.
- Upload it into your blog using Audacity, this also converts into different files including Mp3
- Create a number of Podcasts on your subject, this will give you more traffic.
- Start your own radio station.
- Transcribe your audios into PDF documents
- Share the information on social networks
- Once done then distribute your audios, same as you do article and videos. There are a number of automatic audio submission sites available.

This is just a small list of techniques to increasing your traffic and converting them into paying customers. However it's a great starting guide for those looking at growing your business online.

CONTINUED GROWTH

Although Ken and Barbie are adopting different business strategies, both want their businesses to grow and expand…don't we all!

Just remember, the Internet is fluid, and you have to be like water. You will need to keep current and up-to-date with what's going on. This means continually learning and can be achieved by:

• Attending seminars and workshops;
• Reading forums and blogs,
• Subscribing to newsletters and websites.
• Reading journals, magazine and newspapers.
• Modelling people who are successful already
• Find mentors, people who will stretch you and take you with them.

You want the edge over your competition. You want to see what they are doing. Review their products, their websites, their advertisements. You want to be able to adapt quickly…. You want to innovate and you want to position and brand yourself as the leader in your market. Most of all you want your business to grow old with you.

If you would like to read the original article, it is our latest magazine Think and Grow Inc. Here's my gift to you, a 6mth magazine subscription. http://www.freemagazinesubscriptions.com.au/

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For more on the author, please visit http://www.LouHarty.com