We have release a new Free Video:
The video tells:
- How to create a real “direct response” site whose purpose is to generate leads (most of your competitors are unaware of these secrets–and are leaving HUGE amounts of money on the table!)
- The best “bait” to get people to give you their information so you can follow up (this is where you can REALLY build your business into a money-making machine!)
- Why you should NEVER trust a designer to create your website (sadly most people don’t pay attention and end up creating a site that just sits there and collects “digital dust”!)
- The secret to getting your customers to pay you each and every month (Best Part? This strategy can be “cut and pasted” into any industry!)
- The one thing you MUST have on your website if you want to grab your prospect’s attention (this is the MOST important lesson on this DVD!)
- An exclusive case study into the 3 WORST websites and why they are leaving money on the table (don’t do this to your website!)
- Case studies into 3 websites that bring in a barrel-full of leads for their respective businesses (this is a million-dollar education in itself!)
Watch Free Video On Internet Marketing for Small Business Now
Regards,
Calvin Close
Wise Internet Solutions
Now that you have an idea of how (and whether!) your company will operate online, it’s time to really step back and analyze your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats — that is to say, perform a SWOT analysis. This is a well-known technique perfected more than forty years ago and still in common use today. There is no better way to analyze your company!
You can further break this analysis down into a consideration of the internal and external attributes of your company. Strengths and weaknesses are considered internal — that is to say, they are attributes of your company or business itself. Opportunities and threats are considered external — that is, things that can help or hinder you originating from beyond your control.
What you want to identify are your company’s (or your business plans):
- Strengths: What is going to be helpful? What do you have going for you?
- Weaknesses: What are some potential problems or flaws in your business or plan?
- Opportunities: What are some favorable conditions and trends that may help you succeed?
- Threats: What are the negatives that might have an impact on your company’s performance (competition, economic climate, etc.).
A SWOT analysis, if conducted realistically, can give you a very clear idea of whether your company is viable. If it is, it can help you predict problems, smooth out your plans, and gain a greater understanding of your challenges in the future.
Once you’ve done this to your company, you can also perform a SWOT analysis on your marketing campaign. For example, you might come up with something that looks like the following:
- Strengths: Product addresses a well-known need, should be able to attract people’s attention
- Weaknesses: Product does not necessarily stand out from competition
- Opportunities: Targeting a niche segment of the population for whom the product will hold greater appeal
- Threats: Competition from similar products already existing online
From this sort of analysis, you’ll be able to make stronger decisions about your product, your company, and your marketing strategies — online or off.
This article is an extract from our free guide, “How To Increase Profits By Taking Your Business Online“.
Download the free guide in full at:
http://www.wiseinternetsolutions.com/html/website_design_free_guide.php
Calvin Close
President
Wise Internet Solutions
Assuming that you’ve decided on a product that will work for an online business, you’re probably beginning to wonder how on earth you’ll get paid for online purchases. Fortunately, it’s actually a pretty simple process in this day and age.
The first thing you need to know, though, is that you MUST be able to accept credit cards. When eBay started out, most sellers accepted personal checks or money orders in payments. The buyer would have to send off the payment and wait for the check to clear before the seller could ship their item. These days, eBay will not even allow you to list an item unless you provide an electronic means of payment.
Don’t panic, though — there are three very simple methods that will allow you to accept plastic online:
1. PayPal
PayPal is the world’s most popular method of making online purchases for a reason: it’s easy, safe, fast, and doesn’t have any monthly fees or sign-up costs. With PayPal, the buyer submits their credit card information to PayPal, a known and trusted organization, rather than you, who they don’t know. PayPal then processes the transaction on their behalf and immediately deposits the funds in your PayPal account. You can then withdraw them to your personal bank account.
The benefits here are obvious: safety, ease of use, and speed. The only downside to PayPal is that you will end up paying a percentage of your profits in exchange for their services. Keep in mind, though, that you’re not likely to find a company that does this sort of work for you out of the goodness of their hearts.
2. Google Checkout
Google Checkout is becoming increasingly popular with online merchants. Most people are familiar with Google and instinctively trust the name since they know it’s, at least, a real company. Furthermore, Google allows customers to shop a wide variety of participating stores and organize all of their purchases at once.
In practice, Google Checkout works similarly to PayPal, and its fees are similar as well. That means that you can feel free to offer both of these as methods of payment on your site, since you won’t be charged unless someone uses them.
3. Merchant Accounts
For some businesses, the old fashioned methods are still best. A merchant account at your local bank will allow you to accept credit card payments (online or otherwise). This is a particularly good option if your business is not conducted solely online — if you plan to do some selling in the physical world or if you want to do phone business.
Unlike PayPal and Google Checkout, merchant accounts come with monthly fees, but conversely they carry lower transaction fees. Most online businesses start with PayPal or its equivalent and move onto a merchant account if necessary.
This article is an extract from our free guide, “How To Increase Profits By Taking Your Business Online“.
Download the free guide in full at:
http://www.wiseinternetsolutions.com/html/website_design_free_guide.php
Calvin Close
President
Wise Internet Solutions
Whether you’re an established business or just getting started, there are a number of things to consider when deciding if your business is right for online sales. Basically, there are five questions you have to ask yourself:
1 Is my product reasonable to ship?
Keep in mind that when you’re working with online sales, your product has to get to the customer. In the case of a digital item, such as a computer program or ebook, that makes online sales ideal — you simply email the product to the costumer. If you’re dealing with a physical item, you’ll want to look into shipping costs and methods before you start.
Also keep in mind whether your item is one that just doesn’t lend itself to shipping. Fragile and breakable items, while fine to ship, do take more care in packaging. If your business grows rapidly, you’re going to spend a lot of your time on shipping. And some items — especially large, bulky ones — just aren’t worth the cost of mailing them. So if you’re selling second hand washing machines, you might want to stick to a local market.
2 Can my services be reasonably provided outside of my regional area?
There are some services that cannot be provided to people that are physically located some distance from the provider. An example is a lawn mowing service. Other services can be provided to people across the country or even across the world.
3 Does my product appeal to a wide variety of people?
If you’re dealing with a service or product with limited appeal, then while you still may want a website, you’re probably not going to waste a lot of time or money on online advertising. If you’re selling products or services that only appeal to people in your city or county, the internet is not going to help you generate more sales.
4 Do you have information that you can sell?
There are many businesses that have information within their organization that people would actually be happy to pay for. If that information was written as a guide or produced as a video, it could be sold to a very wide audience. For example, a real estate agent knows how to increase the sale price of a home. If that information was put into a guide, people would be willing to pay for it.
5 How competitive is the market?
Go to Google (or any reliable search engine) and plug in the name of your product. For example, if you’ve created an ebook on how to survive losing your job, type in “survive losing job.” Once the search results come up take a look on the right hand of the screen. That’s where you’ll find the PPC advertisements that your potential competitors have purchased.
Spend some time browsing the competition and answer yourself honestly: do you have what it takes to stand out from the crowd?
On the other hand, NO competition isn’t always a good sign, either — it could mean that there’s simply no market for this sort of product.
Consider this your market research. It’s essential that before you embark on any online business venture you carefully consider these five questions!
This article is an extract from our free guide, “How To Increase Profits By Taking Your Business Online“.
Download the free guide in full at:
http://www.wiseinternetsolutions.com/html/website_design_free_guide.php
Calvin Close
President
Wise Internet Solutions
Microsoft has finally announced the name of their new search engine. The search engine is to be named Bing.
At this point, Bing is not available, but will be progressively rolled out worldwide between now and June 3.
Press Releases from Microsoft state that Microsoft have designed Bing using a completely fresh look at how people search on the internet.
Over the last few years, the number of Web sites has increased exponentially.
The availability of such a vast amount of information has drawn more people online to make decisions, whether day-to-day tasks or major business and household purchases. But it’s also led to search engines that can provide too much information, and page after page of irrelevant or extraneous search results. In other words, even though the type, scope and amount of content on the Web has changed radically in the last decade, the tools we use to find information and make decisions have stayed basically the same.
Microsoft studies the search experience and found that
- Search results for 50 percent of the queries fail to meet the consumer’s needs
- 35 percent of people express dissatisfaction with search
- 72 percent of people surveyed said current search results are too disorganized
- Users are focused more on tasks and decisions: 66 percent of people reported using search engines to make decisions
- Seventy-five percent of people say they use a search engine to inform a decision for product purchase
- 62 percent to find a local business or destination
- 45 percent to select a flight or hotel
- 43 percent for healthcare research
Based on these studies, Microsoft wanted to peel away the layers standing between a user and information and help people make informed decisions.
That is why Microsoft are calling Bing the Decision Engine.
Links:
- Bing (Being rolled out between now and June 3)
- Bing the Decision Engine
- Behind the Bing Development (Guides, Videos and more)
- Bing on Twitter
I will post a review when I get to use Bing a little more.
Calvin Close
Wise Internet Solutions
Last week, a company launched a new product on the internet. They completely sold out their $2,000/unit product (over $1 million in sales) in just over 24 hours.
They do not have a retail store, nor can you buy their product in any other retail store. You could only buy it online (before it sold out).
They achieved this incredible result from a small office with just a few employees.
People from all over the world bought their product, which was basically a business training course.
This is not an isolated case. Over the last few weeks, there have been several of these very successful internet sales launches.
There was also this business that was selling herbal remedies. The owner went from surviving on food stamps to producing a six-figure income.
Internet business is one of the few sectors that are not suffering from the bad economy.
We all like to shop in Swainsboro when we can. However, there are some things that you cannot buy here, so you go out of town to buy them.
What if non-Swainsboro people bought things from Swainsboro businesses? What do you think the effect would be on our local economy if money started pouring into our town from people all over the USA?
The internet is the way to do it.
All the leading indicators show that selling over the internet is the way of the future.
Whether you own a retail store, sell from your home or would like to start a business, why limit your sales to the local Swainsboro market?
Let’s think bigger. Let’s bring money into Swainsboro using the internet and boost our local economy.
You have probably bought something on the internet. Why not also sell to other people as well.
Our company sells our services all over the world, and you probably can too. Just about any product or service can be sold using the internet.
What do you think? Post your comment below and let’s discuss this.
Calvin Close
If you have used the internet, you have probably used Google to search for something. However, Google can do a whole lot more than help you search for something on the internet.
If you want to know how Google sees your home, search for your full street address in Google. Click the Google Maps link at the top of the search results and it will show you a local street map. You can then click a link to see a real street view of your home.
If you would like directions to drive somewhere, search for the address, then click the “directions to here” link. Type in your starting location and you will be given turn-by-turn directions. If you click the little camera icon on the directions, you can look at a street view of each turn along the way.
If you want to buy something on the internet, once you search for an item like “Panasonic Digital Camera”, there will be a link at the top “Shopping”. Click this link and Google will show you a list of cameras for sale across the internet. There are also links for you to see images, videos and news about the item you are searching for.
If you want to know quickly what the weather will be like for the next few days, type in “Swainsboro weather” and Google will tell you the current weather and forecast for the next four days.
Do you want to know the status of any major airline flight, type in the flight number like NW2545 and Google will show you the actual departure time, whether it is late and its estimated arrival time.
Do you want to track a package being shipped by UPS, FedEx or USPS? If you have the tracking number, type it into Google and Google will give you a links to track the status of your shipment.
Google can also act like a smart calculator. You can get a quick answer for “36% of 250″, plus most other normal calculator functions. However, the Google calculator goes beyond that. If you want to know how much $250 Australian dollars is in US dollars, type in “250AUD in USD” and Google will tell you. The Google calculator can also convert miles to kilometers, Fahrenheit to Celsius, plus most other conversions.
Google can also quickly tell you the time in most cities in the world by typing “time in New York” or any other city. Google will show you the actual current time.
Google can also be your handy dictionary. Type in “define:apple” and you will get a whole range of definitions for apple.
The other search engines like Yahoo and Microsoft Live have similar features. In fact, Microsoft Live is coming out with some nice new features. Go to www.live.com and do some exploring.
Have you been wondering about how to sell on the internet? In this series so far, we have been looking at how to sell on the internet successfully. In our first part in this series, we discussed various reasons that cause companies to not use the internet for their advantage, and why these reasons should not stop you from getting a website for your company. In the last two articles, we discussed how to get a website and what to put on your website.
In this article, we are going to discuss how to get people to visit your website. Firstly, we will discuss where to promote your website, then we will address what to promote.
Local stores get people in their stores by advertising in the newspaper, on the radio and with brochures mailed to your home. I also recommend advertising your website using the same advertising mediums – particularly if your business is a local-based business.
The internet also could be a major source of new customers for your company. One of the main ways to get customers from the internet is through people finding you on Google and Yahoo (known as search engines). Depending on what you sell, there could be hundreds or even thousands of people searching for your products or services every month using Google and Yahoo.
If you have a website, you need to make sure it is listed on the first few pages of these search engines because most people don’t look past the first three pages.
Test your website by searching for your product or service (not your company name). Is your website listed on the first few pages? If not, you need to get someone to modify your website so that it does.
You can also pay to advertise your website on Google and Yahoo. This way, your website will be shown in the “Sponsored Links” if people search for your product or service.
There are many other places on the internet that you can promote your website. These include advertising on websites of newspapers and other websites where your customers would visit.
So now that we have discussed where to promote your website, let us turn our attention to the subject of what to promote.
Think about your customers. What do they want, or what do you have to offer that they would love to have – especially things that you can give for free? You will certainly get a better result if you promote things that offer exceptional value rather than just promoting your company, products and services. For example, if your business was a veterinary clinic, you could promote a free guide on taking care of your pet. You could also promote free coupons if they go to your website.
Apart from the direct response you get from this promotion, you will get an additional benefit. People will find out about it and start telling others to go to your website to also get a copy. This is known as viral marketing, and it can be extremely powerful in getting people to your website.
In my next article, I am going to cover selling on EBay. Do you have excess stock that has not been selling? If so, EBay may be a way for you to sell it quickly.
Have you been wondering about how to sell on the internet? In this series so far, we have been looking at how to sell on the internet successfully. In our first part in this series, we discussed various reasons that cause companies to not use the internet for their advantage, and why these reasons should not stop you from getting a website for your company. In the last article, we discussed how to get a website.
Now we are going to discuss one of the most important aspects of selling on the internet successfully – what to put on your website.
Did you know that over 98% of websites make almost ZERO sales? There are two main reasons for this. The first reason is that the website gets very few visitors. We will cover this in our next article. The second reason for not generating sales from your website is that the website contains the wrong things, so even those people that do visit your website do not buy from you.
One of the main reasons people don’t buy from you is that they don’t believe that your product / service will fulfill their needs or desires. Sometimes, this is a reality. However, in many cases, it is a perception only – because the right message is not being told.
Most often, companies fill their websites with information about their company, their products and their services. Unfortunately, this is of no interest to most people. Instead, they should be telling how their products / services will meet the needs or desires of the web visitors.
Let’s look at an example.
What would you rather read about? A brochure titled, “Get a new high-quality metal roof from ABC Corporation” or one that is titled, “Get a new roof that will last for 50 years – maintenance free”?
You see, in the first case above, the title is assuming that people know the benefits of a metal roof. In the second case, the main benefit is stated clearly – enticing you to read more about it.
Another common mistake is to assume that by putting a “Contact Us” button on your website, people will race to contact you. It doesn’t work like that. You will get far more people contact you if you make it easier for them to contact you (by having your contact information very prominent) and by giving them an incentive to contact you (by offering free samples, coupons, etc).
There are other reasons that cause poor sales from websites, but it is beyond the scope of this article.
In our next article, we will cover how to get people to visit your website. Just like a retail store – if you have no shoppers, you get no sales!
If you have any questions about this article or any previous article, contact Calvin directly. If it would be of interest to other people, we can discuss your question in a future article.
Calvin Close
Wise Internet Solutions
Many companies have not considered selling on the internet. For others, it is an unfulfilled dream. In our last article, we discussed various reasons that cause companies to not use the internet for their advantage, and why these reasons should not stop you from getting a website for your company.
This week, we are going to discuss how to get a website. This is really for interests’ sake because your website design company usually does this for you.
Have you ever wondered what happens when you go to a website using Internet Explorer or Firefox (or any other web browser)? Where does the information come from, and how does it get to you?
Essentially, the internet is literally millions of computers around the world that are connected to each other like a huge spider web. This is why the internet is sometimes referred to as “the web”.
So, when you type a website address (like www.wiseinternetsolutions.com) into your web browser, your computer looks up that website address in a directory called a DNS server. This DNS server is like a phone book that tells your computer where that website is located in the world. Your computer then requests the information from that website and displays it in your web browser.
There are three main things that need to happen to get your website on the internet.
Firstly, you need to register your own domain name or website address for your company. A domain name is like a piece of internet property. You cannot put your website on a website address unless you own it, just like you cannot build a house on someone else’s land. So, you need to find a domain name that has not been taken, and then register it.
Secondly, you need to find a place to “host” your website. A web hosting company is a company that has computers connected to the internet all the time. By paying a monthly rental, you are allowed to save your website on their computers so that anyone can access your website any time of the day or night. These computers have backup power supplies so that your website is always available, even during power outages.
Thirdly, you need to design the website and save it to your web host. Really, a website is just a set of pages with content that are linked together so that people can navigate from one page to another. The content can be text, pictures, music and / or video among other things.
What you put on the website will make the difference between whether or not your website will generate sales for your company. We will cover that in our next article.