I hope you are looking forward to the 3rd installment of this article series. Divulging more secrets every day to help you become a huge success with your online business venture.

A web business is just like an offline business. It takes hard work and resolve to succeed. However working smart is heads and tails better than plain old working. These 4 secrets will turn any smart working, dedicated average Joe or Jane into a successful web business owner.

Web Success Secret #3) Pre-selling is far more effective than selling.

The first two parts of this series were geared towards both the search engines and your visitors. This article focuses directly on your visitor- more specifically your relationship with your visitor. You must gently and effectively pre-sell your visitor on your goods or services.

Anyone can sell a product or service online. All it takes is a link to a payment processor such as Paypal. The difference between successful online business owners and those wishing to make a buck is in their ‘voice’. A website has a voice.

The look and feel of your website gives your visitor an impression. When your visitor reads your words they should know the persona of your business and think of you as an expert.

These words, or content, should provide tons of information in small, bite-sized chunks of text. No one likes to read 8 pages of content on a website. On the flip side, no one likes to buy a product without knowing more about it. You need to find the perfect balance between no information and providing too much.

Generally speaking, 400-800 words can do the trick. It can provide content, position you as the expert and gently pre-sell your visitor on a product or service.

In addition to how much content you provide you should focus on providing specific answers to your customer’s problems or concerns. Most visitors are on your website because they want answers. They are not surfing your site to buy something. They want answers. So give them answers!

It’s how you provide your answers that matters. There is a difference between selling and pre-selling, and how you provide the answers or information your visitor wants is that difference.

Selling is cold, distant and forceful. Pre-selling is the opposite. Pre-selling can be thought of as a recommendation or side note to all the great content you provide.

You want your website voice to develop trust and rapport with your visitor. During that time you are positioned as an expert. Any soft recommendation that you make will be considered by your visitor.

Forceful selling causes people to put up their defenses. It causes them to take a step back and wonder what your motives are. Pre-selling does not affect people this way.

Pre-selling should lead those that are interested to your product without hesitation and those that are not interested should be led to more general content on your website- that will again attempt to gently pre-sell them.

Pre-selling and content (part 1 of this series) are closely related. You must provide information to your site visitors. You must be viewed as the expert and as a helpful friend making a recommendation.

People will not feel sold by that. People will respect that you are providing answers to their problems and making a recommendation for a product that can provide even more helpful info. It’s seen as a favor instead of a hard sell.

As I mentioned earlier, it is best to work smarter and not harder. If you would like additional guidance on how to effectively pre-sell on the Internet, contact me for a free ebook.

Having a successful web business starts with effective content. Stay tuned for part 4! If you missed Part 1 or 2 and would like a complimentary copy please contact me and I will forward it to you immediately.

Todays resource is truly the mac-daddy of how to learn and understand the nuances of internet marketing and it was my second purchase for learning how to be successful online. As you can imagine, since then it has been updated numerous times and today its just as successful and popular as ever. The Step By Step Guide To Selling Online leaves nothing to chance.

Do you know that 95% of the people starting out in their internet businesses fail? In the middle of all the noise and hype on the internet today, not many people realize that all the ideas and techniques you can find are useless if you don’t first understand what your business model is or how are you going to make money on the internet. Even the most remarkable internet marketing technique will not work if you don’t understand how to apply it to your business.

The 3 most popular business models are:

1) Affiliate Marketing

Perhaps the most popular one out there, affiliate marketing provides a good start for newbies. Almost anyone can sign-up for an affiliate program for free and start promoting the chosen product or service. Commissions start coming in if someone will buy or participate in the programs promoted. Affiliate marketers don’t carry any risk, since they do not pay for the creation of the product, they do not handle customer service, they need not know the innards of internet transactions, like merchant accounts, autoresponder (what is that?), reciprocal linking, etc. It’s also possible to be an affiliate even without a website.

Some affiliate marketing programs you may participate in require little up-front investment. Some are free. It’s no surprise therefore that almost everyone and their neighbor promotes an affiliate program or another. In fact, if there is a single reason why the Internet today is so proliferated with ads and banners, it’s because of affiliate programs.

With the millions out there involve in affiliate marketing, only 5% ever make any money and only 1% makes really big money. The “Super Affiliates,” so they are called, do it very differently from the rest, therefore they earn the big checks.

2) Writing an eBook or other type of information product, recording an information CD.

This is a great strategy because there are thousands of possibilities for the type of product that you can create. There are so many niche markets that you can write about. It could be a course on Japanese gardens, how to start your own babysitting business, how to sell your artwork, taking care of your dog’s ears … there are endless topics and still many that have not yet been explored by online marketers. You don’t have to write the information yourself, you can get a ghost writer or hire someone to produce the CD.

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You may recall that back in the beginning of January I challenged you to make 2010 the year you finally got a business started online. Well, the first quarter of the year is now over, and I really would like to know:

… Are you making money on the Internet yet?

How much have you accomplished since January? Are you proud of what you’ve achieved — or frustrated by how little you’ve done?

If not, do you feel like you’re constantly burning rubber and going nowhere?

You need to ask yourself: Why?

There are 5 main reasons you may be suffering from “failure to launch”…

#1: You’re Overwhelmed and Don’t Know Where to Start

So many different experts say you have to do THIS first, or THAT. And you absolutely MUST buy THIS product, and THAT service — and here’s one that you can’t live without! If you’ve been on a list of the mega-launches lately you’ll know exactly what I mean.

It’s enough to drive you BATTY.

My advice is do some research and find a proven, step-by-step method that walks you through every stage of building a business, so you know exactly WHAT you need to do and WHEN.

… Then stick with that system and follow it straight through from beginning to end — without getting distracted by all the other possibilities out there.

Keep it simple and follow the basics… otherwise, you’ll find yourself trying to run in a dozen different directions at once… and going nowhere fast!

#2: Fear of Technology

I see it when I talk to people at my seminars…

… I suggest they learn to do it themselves first — so they can do as much of their own site management as possible — and their eyes get that “deer caught in the headlights” look.

All I can tell you is, don’t be afraid to learn something new! That old saying, “old dogs can’t learn new tricks” doesn’t apply here.

If you know how to use the computer to write letters… send emails… and surf the Internet, then you have ALL the skills you need to start an online business.

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In Social media 101 Today we’re going to tell you about 8 free sites that’ll help you explode your traffic…

AND get a better search engine ranking…

AND build a name for yourself as an expert in your field…

AND maintain better customer relations…

AND get new ideas for growing your business!

The sites we’re talking about are the ‘Net’s most popular social media sites. They’re online gathering places where people meet to share information and build relationships with each other. They’re also great places to meet potential customers and business partners.

… Plus, you can also build up a huge network of loyal customers who will do a lot of your advertising for you simply by raving about your product to all their friends and family. (And as you probably know, word-of-mouth advertising from a trusted source is the most effective kind of advertising you can get.)

And if some of these loyal customers start linking to your site from their sites, that can help you get a serious boost in the search engine rankings.

Here are the top 8 social media sites you need to know about:

* > Facebook: The world’s biggest social networking site. Members go to find other people who share the same interests or activities. You can build your own online profile and share different types of information with each other, such as pictures, videos, blog entries, links to other sites, and music clips. Read the rest of this entry

There are a lot of reasons why I love affiliate marketing. Let me quickly share five of them with you… Do you find yourself “starting” to create your own product to sell online, but never “finishing” it? One of the things I love about affiliate marketing is -** You don’t need to create your own products **

Many people find the idea of creating their own products to be an overwhelming and even paralyzing task.

* I don’t have any good ideas!
* I’m not a writer!
* There’s too much competition!
* I don’t know how to set everything up!
* I can’t figure out where to start!
* It’s too hard!

These are just a few of the valid reasons many people give when it comes to not creating their own products to sell. I’m sure with a few minutes of brainstorming, we could come up with a list of many more.

With affiliate marketing, you don’t need your own products. You simply promote someone else’s already proven successful offer for a commission.

And, truth be told, even if you ARE a writer and you DO have lots of ideas and you CAN figure it all out…

** Nobody wants to create new products all the time **

As good as you may be, you don’t know everything! Why try to create a product on every topic imaginable in your market when you can earn just as much money by simply promoting someone else’s really good offer as one of your profit streams? That’s why I love affiliate marketing. You don’t need to create your own products.

But, there’s more…

Pop quiz time. What does “HTML” stand for? Don’t know that one? How about this – what does “FTP” stand for? OK, one more chance. Do you know how to work with either?

That brings me to the second reason why I love affiliate marketing…

** You don’t need to build a website **

What scares people more than creating a product is building a website!

* What in the world is HTML? Or FTP?
* How much does the software cost? And hosting?
* How do I upload files?
* Why isn’t it formatted correctly?
* Why don’t my graphics look like the ones the pros have?

If you are a complete beginner, it can be very difficult (even using templates) to get an attractive website in place. And hiring a professional to do it for you is out of the budget for most people.

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