Starting A Home Business: Are You Lost?
By Dave Brown
Posted Saturday, December 18, 2004
There are so many ways to run a home business and so many people telling which way is the right way, sometimes you just get lost. Here are some simple suggestions that continue to help me build my home business.
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Suggestion #1
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I'm a big fan of pay per click advertising. And Google AdWords is my favorite PPC search engine. The reason is simply that I can often get lots of traffic for a reasonable price.
Too many people think that free traffic through search engine optimization is the only way to go. And alternatively, too many people think that PPC traffic is the only way to go.
Well, there's nothing wrong with using both. By all means, if you can get free traffic from search engines, then do it. Nothing beats that. But you probably won't get all the traffic you could get that way. There will probably still be relevant keywords for which you're not getting traffic.
PPC advertising will let you get traffic for any keywords that are relevant to what you're advertising. And if I can pay someone $1 and they'll pay me more than $1 in return, then I consider that to be a good deal.
Download a free copy of my Google AdWords Checklist. If you're not already a PPC wizard, then it will help you streamline your PPC strategy. And I continue to update it.
(http://www.dave-brown.com/rawc.html)
Once you have a Google AdWords campaign that's making money, then you'll probably want to try it out on other PPC search engines. Sometimes it will work out, and other times it won't. But it's worth spending a few bucks to give it a shot.
Kanoodle is one of fastest growing smaller PPC search engines (Google and Overture are the two big ones). They aren't competing with Google, but they're gaining ground and adding more features to their system. I think they're worth checking out. In fact, I have used them myself.
If you're ready to branch out, then you can get $5 of clicks from Kanoodle at absolutely no cost. You can try them out before you even get out your wallet. Just click the link below to give 'em a whirl.
(http://www.dave-brown.com/rkanoodle.html)
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Suggestion #2
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The biggest obstacle for me in doing business online has been, and probably always will be, coming up with ideas for what to do. What can I offer people that they will be willing to pay me for? That's always the question on my mind. As time goes on, I come up with more and more answers, but it's never easy.
And I know that this is the major problem that many other people face because I'm constantly hearing people talk about it.
Perhaps the thing that's helped me answer this question the most is going to conferences and seminars. I think I've benefited from this more than anything else I've spent money on.
Conferences help because each speaker usually talks for an hour or more about something that they do. Granted, sometimes a speaker just pitches you for an hour. But usually a speaker offers at least one good idea. But this is probably the least important aspect of conferences.
Conferences help because you actually have the opportunity to talk with the speakers and ask them questions. You might have to be persistent to get your chance at a large conference. But if you have specific questions, these are usually the people to answer them.
Conferences help because you have the opportunity to speak with all of the other attendees. Sometimes this might be 25 people, and sometimes it might be several hundred. These are good people to talk with. They paid good money to be there, so they're probably pretty serious about what they do. You can learn from them. You can come up with new ideas by talking with them. Sometimes you can even form a profitable partnership.
Conferences help because you get to meet people who are doing what you want to do. Assuming you haven't hit the big time yet, you'll meet people at conferences who have. And you'll find out that it really is possible. And they're just regular people like you. There's nothing more motivating.
Conferences help because they get your brain going in overdrive. Without exception, every time I come home from a conference, I have 1001 thoughts racing through my head. It's often the time that I come up with my best ideas. I can't explain exactly why this happens, but the atmosphere just does it to you.
Of course, not everyone should attend a conference. I believe you have to be in the right frame of mind. You have to be eager to succeed and hungry for ideas. If that's not where you are right now, then right now is not the right time.
But there are plenty of conferences continually happening, so you'll always have the chance when you're ready.
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Suggestion #3
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Still on the topic of coming up with profitable ideas, there are less expensive ways than attending conferences.
Something that never fails to get my mind going is a membership site that I've subscribed to for probably nine months or so. Corey Rudl's Secrets To Their Success.
(http://www.dave-brown.com/rstts.html)
In case you're not familiar with it, Corey interviews people who have achieved success online, and he posts these very extensive interviews to the site. Two new interviews each month. But you also get access to all of the previous interviews, and there are tons of them. Honestly, I still haven't read them all as long as I've been a member.
This is one of the very best sites where you can see just how many different ways people are doing business online. There are people doing things that you would never imagine. And when I read these interviews, I always start thinking about things that I probably wouldn't have ever thought of otherwise.
So if you want to expand your thinking, then check it out.
(http://www.dave-brown.com/rstts.html)
If you're serious about building a successful business online but you're still having trouble getting off the launching pad, then you should have at least one more good idea now than you did 10 minutes ago.
About the Author
Dave Brown is a self-taught marketer and software developer. He also publishes the uncommon and uniquely original newsletter on making the most of your life - A Fresh Perspective. You can learn more at
(http://www.dave-brown.com)
