If you don't think the internet is a viable medium for promoting a home-based business then you might have had your head under a rock for the last 5 years. There is so much money to be made using the internet a person could literally devote the rest of their life to the study of marketing online and never run out of new discoveries.

It would be my guess that more than 95% of the population of the world has no idea that the internet is a viable way to create a six-figure income, year after year. I've visited some countries where much of the population still does not have a reliable internet connection, yet I personally know hundreds of people that earn a full-time income because of the internet.

Put in simple language, the internet allows connections among people that can facilitate the growing of a home-based business team. In my first business, I estimated that approximately 85% of my total sales (of a six-figure income) came originally from the internet. Although I may have spoken with them before they joined my business, the internet facilitated the meeting in the first place.

It was a familiar story to have someone call me after searching yahoo or Google, finding my site and then calling me to ask more questions or get started in my business. This is the way the majority of my clients and team members found me. I remember running full-page ads in home business magazines that cost me $7,000 a month and spending $3,000 on a postcard campaign and none of them produced a return on investment like my online advertising.

I would encourage anyone to spend a couple hours a week learning about the marketing and promotional power of the internet. It will be time well invested and can allow you to not only produce a superior return on your advertising dollars but also reach a group of people who may be searching actively and specifically for your individual business. These who are searching specifically for your business are your most ideal target market. There's no way possible you can be as targeted in your marketing with online advertising. Period.

There is a basic internet marketing course that just about every internet marketer I know has on their bookshelf and that's the basics course produced by the Internet Marketing Center (do a Google search to find them or visit marketingtips.com, which is their main site).

If you don't already have it, make sure you reserve your name as a domain name. You can visit www.GoDaddy.com to check on your name's availability. If your name is Mary Smith, for example, register the domain name www.MarySmith.com. And if its not available, you can always get creative and try something like www.WhoIsMarySmith.com. That will make people curious. You can reserve one of these domain names for about $9/year.

Even if you just 'forward' this domain you've just purchased to your corporate website, you will have added a degree of professionalism to your business. This can help get you started marketing your home-based business on the internet.


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John Roney is the author of The Everyday Apprentice (Morgan James, 2008) as well as a number of articles on home-based business success. John actively builds his own home business in the travel and resort industry by helping his team succeed with proven training and marketing systems. John teaches how to start a home-based business that pays $1000 per sale with zero up-front investment. For more information, visit http://www.JohnRoney.com .