Comfort Zone Buster: Re-Energize Your Online Business

Comfort Zone Buster: Re-Energize Your Online Business
By Donna Gunter

One of the greatest pitfalls I've discovered as an online business owner is getting stuck in my own comfort zone. In this comfort zone I'm quite capable, comfortable, stress-free, and quite frankly, caught in a rut. When I make the unconscious decision to "nest" in my own comfort zone, I usually become bored in a short period of time. It seems as though there's nothing more to do, no more great challenges to tackle, nothing to which I anticipate and look forward -- in other words, a slow yet painless death of my business.

When I feel the walls of this comfortable rut grow higher and higher, I think of a story shared by a life coach at a conference I attended several years ago. This coach was vacationing in Australia and had the opportunity to go bungee-jumping. This sport scared her greatly, so she spent the first 3 weeks of her visit coming up with all the reasons she didn't want to participate. Eventually she decided that she would regret this missed opportunity if she didn't rise to this challenge, and made a reservation to go on a jump. On the day of her jump, after she harnessed up, the two people in line in front of her backed out. She was now in a do or die position -- it was her turn to jump -- and she had to decide if she really wanted to do this.

Her bungee jumping coach came up to her and whispered, "You wouldn't be here if this wasn't what you wanted to do." She realized he was right, and she jumped. This defining moment in her life enables her to coach her clients to "jump" from where they are to where they want to be, even though it might be the scariest moment in their lives.

How would your life or business be different if you forced yourself out of your comfort zone? What is it that will make you move forward to get where you want to be? Here are five strategies that I use to re-energize my online business when I get a bit too cozy in my comfort zone rut:

1. Read magazines/books/trade publications in other industries. I love to use this activity as a way to generate ideas for my business -- it stirs my creativity. Reading what others are successfully doing in their industries inspires to me determine if I can replicate their success in my own business or industry.

2. Contact someone who intimidates you. We all have these gurus in our industries that may scare us or intimidate us a bit because of their popularity. Or, perhaps their success scares you in some way. Determine what you'd like to learn from them, and request to speak with them by phone, email, or in-person for a short amount of time to ask them a few questions. If you don't personally know them, find someone who does and request an introduction. More than likely they'll agree, and you'll discover that they're just as human as you are.

3. Ask for honest feedback from a trusted colleague. Many times when we stay wrapped up in our businesses, it's hard to see where we need improvement or additions because we've become accustomed to how things are. Ask a trusted colleague for honest feedback about some aspect of your business. You can create your own mastermind group and ask for this on a regular basis, as I do.

4. Participate in an activity that flies in the face of your beliefs. Nothing stirs the pot like participating in some function where you're the minority -- where there are few others who believe what you believe or hold the values that you hold. Be patient, and permit those you meet to fully express their point of view. You never know -- you might actually learn something, or better yet, get an idea or inspiration to propel yourself forward.

5. Attend an event that scares you. I recently enrolled in a coaching program where the coach is speaking about several subjects that scare me, as these subjects are areas in which I need a great deal of improvement. However, I know that in order for me to succeed, I need to follow her model, as she's already manifested great success by using it. I'm still completely resisting several of the strategies (screaming loudly, in fact), but that's ok, as I know that when I'm truly ready, I'll quickly move forward to implementation.

Acknowledge your need for ongoing creativity and innovation as an online business owner. Sometimes the change you desire may be painless, while in other cases you might find yourself kicking and screaming all the way, yet willing to take the chance to move yourself forward. In my experience, the louder you resist, the more profound the change. Are you ready to jump? Copyright (c) 2008 Donna Gunter

by Hilum Mburu

As the World Wide Web evolves to a global village, every business that is serious about harnessing the power of the internet to tap into a greater market must meticulously plan for their online presence. Having an effective web site requires strategy from choosing the designer and aesthetics to the basic ease of use mechanics.Building an effective websites may seem like a daunting task but it need not be. The following points will help you succeed during the planning stage.

Choosing a Web Designer

An effective website that works is a result of experience, skill, and creativity so choosing the right person to help you get going is essential. The designer should have a thorough knowledge of internet technologies and web standards backed up with a great portfolio which should give you a glimpse of their strengths and weaknesses. A good designer will listen to your needs and make helpful suggestions toward key decisions you need to make at the start of the web design process. The designer will help you articulate your goals and ideas and focus them into an effective website that will help you establish your online presence. There are many qualities that one should look for but all in all you should look for an experienced designer, a graphic design expert, competent technical skills, a good portfolio and site management abilities

Type of Web Site

You need to ask yourself what do I want my website to do for me? There are different types of websites, static, dynamic, e-commerce driven and blogs. Static web sites are the most typical web sites on the Internet and are comprised of text, graphics and images. Dynamic web sites on the other hand are database driven and return results depending on end-user request. Dynamic web sites usually use some form of active script to access the database and return results such as ASP, PHP, and Cold Fusion. A popular type of dynamic web site is called a Blog. Blogs are interactive websites which allow for user input via comments section, these are very useful for learning about the needs of your clients and meeting them satisfactorily. Blogs can be developed as entire websites or as plug-ins or a section on a website. Many web sites offer free blogging such as Word Press E-commerce web sites sell products and services. E-commerce sites are often a type of dynamic web site and utilize a database, but not all however. Some e-commerce sites can be setup simply using PayPal or Google Pay.

Aesthetics

Now let get into the fun part, your website should be visually appealing to your visitors. Remember that the goal of your website is to inform the visitors not annoy them with flashy graphics and screaming colors, so keep the graphics to a minimum. Use simple and clean layouts throughout the site that will enhance the presentation of your content and that will enable the visitor quickly find the information they are looking for before they get annoyed and move on. Now, balance is the key here and not eliminating graphics altogether. Using bland layouts that are boring will have the same effect as over usage. If you have hired a designer trusting in their judgment and listening to their input will help you steer clear of issues.

Content Presentation

The visitor is looking for information and how easy they get it is determined by the presentation. Be clear and concise that one is able to decide if what you are offering is the service or product they are looking for. Use titles and headings in your content to help your visitors scan for the details they are looking for. Keep the content fresh and updated to win the confidence of the visitor. Provide useful content to the visitor that calls them to action, provide solutions to their problems and they will definitely come back for more. Refrain from duplicating your website with your brochure, use a personal language that shows them exactly what they will get from your site. Marketing jargon and vague descriptions is a no-no, you should use a conversational language because your visitors have come for details.

Navigation

Navigation is a road map with clear landmarks, roads that intersect and even suggested routes. Keep in mind that your visitors don't necessarily come through the homepage since they can come through search engines, bookmarks, links from other websites and so on. Make sure that you carry your navigation element uniformly in your site visitors need to know where they are, where they can go and how to go back to their entry point. If your visitor has to stop and ask for directions then chances are they will never get to where they are going in your site. A consistent navigation on each page will make your site more intuitive and appealing.

Search Engines

Search engine optimization should be addressed from the beginning. Search Engine Optimization or ‘SEO’ is important because it assists your site in being 'found' and ranked by search engines. This is done by optimizing your pages to be indexed by the search engine robots that the big search engines like Google use. A few techniques used are; do a keyword research (words or phrases used by users to look for a service or product) then use the keywords in titles, links and in the content. Use 'alt tags' for images and then make sure you have good quality content.

E-Commerce

If you are intending to sell your products and services through your website, then you need to plan this well in advance. E-commerce is a great way of increasing sales and exposing your products and services to a global audience. There are various ways that you can accept payments online these include, bank transfers, credit cards, online checks, and so forth. E-commerce can be full of hidden fees and dangers such as having an unsecured web site that is allowing transaction information to be intercepted. Third party services such as PayPal allow webmasters large and small to setup an e-commerce site quickly and safely. In conclusion if you will keep all these elements in mind during the planning stage of your web site and do adequate research you will find the building process to go far more smoothly.

Sources: www.site-reference.com

by Hilum Mburu

As the World Wide Web evolves to a global village, every business that is serious about harnessing the power of the internet to tap into a greater market must meticulously plan for their online presence. Having an effective web site requires strategy from choosing the designer and aesthetics to the basic ease of use mechanics.Building an effective websites may seem like a daunting task but it need not be. The following points will help you succeed during the planning stage.

Choosing a Web Designer

An effective website that works is a result of experience, skill, and creativity so choosing the right person to help you get going is essential. The designer should have a thorough knowledge of internet technologies and web standards backed up with a great portfolio which should give you a glimpse of their strengths and weaknesses. A good designer will listen to your needs and make helpful suggestions toward key decisions you need to make at the start of the web design process. The designer will help you articulate your goals and ideas and focus them into an effective website that will help you establish your online presence. There are many qualities that one should look for but all in all you should look for an experienced designer, a graphic design expert, competent technical skills, a good portfolio and site management abilities

Type of Web Site

You need to ask yourself what do I want my website to do for me? There are different types of websites, static, dynamic, e-commerce driven and blogs. Static web sites are the most typical web sites on the Internet and are comprised of text, graphics and images. Dynamic web sites on the other hand are database driven and return results depending on end-user request. Dynamic web sites usually use some form of active script to access the database and return results such as ASP, PHP, and Cold Fusion. A popular type of dynamic web site is called a Blog. Blogs are interactive websites which allow for user input via comments section, these are very useful for learning about the needs of your clients and meeting them satisfactorily. Blogs can be developed as entire websites or as plug-ins or a section on a website. Many web sites offer free blogging such as Word Press E-commerce web sites sell products and services. E-commerce sites are often a type of dynamic web site and utilize a database, but not all however. Some e-commerce sites can be setup simply using PayPal or Google Pay.

Aesthetics

Now let get into the fun part, your website should be visually appealing to your visitors. Remember that the goal of your website is to inform the visitors not annoy them with flashy graphics and screaming colors, so keep the graphics to a minimum. Use simple and clean layouts throughout the site that will enhance the presentation of your content and that will enable the visitor quickly find the information they are looking for before they get annoyed and move on. Now, balance is the key here and not eliminating graphics altogether. Using bland layouts that are boring will have the same effect as over usage. If you have hired a designer trusting in their judgment and listening to their input will help you steer clear of issues.

Content Presentation

The visitor is looking for information and how easy they get it is determined by the presentation. Be clear and concise that one is able to decide if what you are offering is the service or product they are looking for. Use titles and headings in your content to help your visitors scan for the details they are looking for. Keep the content fresh and updated to win the confidence of the visitor. Provide useful content to the visitor that calls them to action, provide solutions to their problems and they will definitely come back for more. Refrain from duplicating your website with your brochure, use a personal language that shows them exactly what they will get from your site. Marketing jargon and vague descriptions is a no-no, you should use a conversational language because your visitors have come for details.

Navigation

Navigation is a road map with clear landmarks, roads that intersect and even suggested routes. Keep in mind that your visitors don't necessarily come through the homepage since they can come through search engines, bookmarks, links from other websites and so on. Make sure that you carry your navigation element uniformly in your site visitors need to know where they are, where they can go and how to go back to their entry point. If your visitor has to stop and ask for directions then chances are they will never get to where they are going in your site. A consistent navigation on each page will make your site more intuitive and appealing.

Search Engines

Search engine optimization should be addressed from the beginning. Search Engine Optimization or ‘SEO’ is important because it assists your site in being 'found' and ranked by search engines. This is done by optimizing your pages to be indexed by the search engine robots that the big search engines like Google use. A few techniques used are; do a keyword research (words or phrases used by users to look for a service or product) then use the keywords in titles, links and in the content. Use 'alt tags' for images and then make sure you have good quality content.

E-Commerce

If you are intending to sell your products and services through your website, then you need to plan this well in advance. E-commerce is a great way of increasing sales and exposing your products and services to a global audience. There are various ways that you can accept payments online these include, bank transfers, credit cards, online checks, and so forth. E-commerce can be full of hidden fees and dangers such as having an unsecured web site that is allowing transaction information to be intercepted. Third party services such as PayPal allow webmasters large and small to setup an e-commerce site quickly and safely. In conclusion if you will keep all these elements in mind during the planning stage of your web site and do adequate research you will find the building process to go far more smoothly.

Sources: www.site-reference.com

Making Money Using Google Adsense

Making Money With Your 1st Or 50th Website Using Google Adsense

by Clinton Douglas IV

If you are just starting online with your first website, you have quite a learning curve in front of you. I know that your learning curve is still long, because I have been making money online for years, and I am still learning new stuff everyday. Every year, more people are coming online. And every year, people struggle to figure out how to tap into the economic engine powered by the Internet. The one thing that newcomers to the Internet frequently fail to realize is that those of us, who are making the most money online, spent years learning our trades.The good news is that Internet newcomers have one major advantage that my mentors and myself did not have when we started our online enterprises. The newcomers have people like us who are willing to teach others what they have learned.

First And Most Important Lesson To Learn

There are three kinds of commercial websites on the Internet: product/service merchants, advertising providers, and non-profit websites.Now, the Red Cross and the United Way are non-profit websites by choice and mission. But, the majority of non-profit websites on the Internet were designed to be for-profit websites, but the website owner will have been lucky to have earned enough to pay their web hosting costs.By the end of this article, I hope that I will have provided you enough information to be able to turn any non-profit website into a profit generating machine.Merchants sell services. They also sell products made by others or themselves. Some merchants produce their own informational books and e-books, on a wide variety of topics.Many people make the mistake of assuming that they do not know anything of value that other people would want to know. But, that just isn't true. Call me an optimist if you will, but I believe everyone knows something that other people would be willing to pay a certain amount of money to learn.

it is a fact that some of the smartest online entrepreneurs I know make a lot of money by writing and selling books and e-books, on topics ranging from cryptograms (http://www.cryptogramsbylouise.com/), to how-to cure acid reflux (http://www.refluxgoneforever.com/), to finding the hero within (http://www.herosoul.com/), to how to be more successful with an online business.I have bought many e-books and I have to say that some were better than others, but all of them helped me to learn what I needed to know in order to be successful with whatever endeavor I was undertaking.

Advertising Providers build websites with the intent of attracting a huge and loyal audience, so that advertisers will consider their website to be a good place to spend their advertising dollars.In those dark days before Google Adsense (http://adsense.google.com/) and Yahoo's Publisher Network (http://publisher.yahoo.com/), we little guys were just tough out-of-luck if we wanted to sell our advertising space through a larger network of advertisers.I remember having a website that was finally serving one thousand unique page views per day, or 30,000 page views per month. I remember thinking that it was time for me to see whom I could sell advertising space. So, I started doing my research.I looked at one advertising network, and then another, and another.

Without fail, most advertising networks required one million page views per month in order for a website to participate in their network. I was just poop out of luck.So, I started advertising space on my site to my visitors. I sold some advertising, but I did not make a living doing it. The main issue here is that the people on my site are looking to learn about travel and other things, and advertisers generally spend their time on sites learning about doing business online.Then in 2003, it all changed with the rollout of Google Adsense. Suddenly, all I needed to do was to apply to participate in Google's program. On approval, I could add one little piece of javascript code to my website, and I could start earning money from Google immediately, by making their client's advertising available on my own website. Finally, my information website had a method for earning money that did not require for me to spend all of my waking hours chasing one sale after another.

Some Background

When I started my first online business, I had set up an Yahoo store (http://www.yahoo.com/). I did very well with it, but after a couple years, I realized that I did not want to keep doing the same thing for the rest of my life.Three rooms of my home were committed to storing merchandise that I was buying for resale. When I made a product purchase, I had to take photos and then sit down to my computer, upload the image and make an appropriate product description. Then I had to spend all of my spare time, making new listings at Yahoo and running to the post office to ship the merchandise I had sold.One day I realized that the reason I had started my business is to provide my family a better standard of living. I had accomplished that goal, at the cost of time with my family. I was literally working from the moment I got out of bed, until I collapsed into my bed at the end of the day.After parting ways with Yahoo, I researched other profit models and settled on a membership site. In order to be successful with a membership website, one must be willing and able to add new good quality content to the website at least three or four times per week. That is a job in itself.While my membership site did well monetarily, I found myself in a position similar to when I had my Yahoo store. I was spending all of my spare time with my business and not my family.

Finally, I Wrapped My Head Around

The SolutionWhat I needed for myself was a website where I could sell other people's products and services, then let the other person handle the entire process of collecting the money and delivering the product or service. I needed to build my business in such a way that I could build my website, when I wanted to invest the time, and I could collect my checks at the end of the month.The advertising website is the best kind of site to have when your goals are the same as mine.So, I embarked on building a website that had information on a wide variety of topics.Three years after I started my current website, Google launched their Adsense program. I applied to Google's Adsense program and was accepted within just a few days. I then applied my Google Adsense code to my website. Over the years, I have been building links to my website so that people could find me.

The articles and directory links have produced good traffic results for me on a consistent basis, since I started the process of building them.The Next Lesson Can Literally Double And Triple Your IncomeWhen you undertake to design a website that will host advertising, don't be shy about it!• Don't stick your advertising in a corner somewhere;

• Don't design your advertising to look like something other than an advertisement;

• Don't be afraid to test your advertising placement;

• Don't be afraid to tell people that they can buy advertising on your website;

• Don't be afraid to charge good money to advertisers to have a placement on your website.

Don't be afraid and don't be shy. Your reason for putting advertising on your website is to give YOU a way to make money from your work. But, in order to keep your advertisers happy, you need to make sure that they get a good return for their investment.When you can help your advertisers make money, then you will by extension earn money from your website. It is a beautiful concept; when I help put money in my advertiser's pockets, they put money in my pocket.Specific Tips To Maximize Your Advertising Click-Through Rates (CTRs)The default link color on the Internet is blue; so make the links in your advertising blue.The default text color on the Internet is black; so make the text in your advertisement black or whatever color is the default text color on your website.Make your advertisement block stand out from the rest of the content on the page. Putting your ads directly in your visitor's face is good. Within a text block, I have found the 300x250 to be the most effective ad block size. To see an example of the 300x250 text block in action, view my blog here: http://www.clintondouglasiv.com/Other ad block sizes that we have seen good results include: the 728x90 leaderboard, 468x60 banner, and the160x600 wide skyscraper.Be The Next Advertising Success StoryI advised a friend of mine to make these kinds of changes on his own website. He already had great traffic, but he was not making as much money as I thought he should be making.On my suggestion, he changed his Google ads from the bottom of his left sidebar to the main part of his pages. He told me that his CTR increased from 0.8% to 2.4%. I told him to change his ads from the 468x15 link unit to the 468x60 banner ad. He told me that his CTR increased from 2.4% to 4.7%. Then I told him to change his links from black to blue. Within just a few weeks, he reported back to me that his click-through rates jumped again, this time from 4.7% to 7.8%. He even reported that on some individual days, his new layout generated as high as 11.4% CTRs. On my friend's website, his CTR jumped from 0.8% where it had been for a couple years, since he started using Google Adsense, to 7.8% on average. While most webmasters will see an average increase of two- to three-times, my friend has experienced a nearly tenfold (+9.75%) increase in his advertising revenue through that website.What could you do with ten times more advertising revenue from your website? You will never know until you implement these kinds of changes on your website to increase your own advertising revenue.

sources: www.site-reference.com