The daily news is dreary — certainly not positive. But when I hear all that doom and gloom stuff, my mind automatically thinks “opportunity is knocking!” With every downturn in the economy, (An eMarketer report indicates that 33% of U.S. adults are more likely to shop online because of high gas prices and that most of them do so because of lower prices and free shipping.) online there are always things you can do to soften the impact or to tap into new streams of income.
Here’s some positive thinking for you!
- Expenses going up? Then start a part-time online venture to supplement your income. Creating an overnight income to replace your day job isn’t possible (don’t believe anyone who claims this to be so), but in your spare time you can create smaller streams of income to help defray increasing costs. An example is selling all the junk in your garage or attic on eBaY.
- With down times create new needs. Create a service or solution that fits those needs and start a site or Blog that helps folks with that need.
- Think about what you love or have a passion for and create a Blog that shares that knowledge and includes advertising such as Google’s AdSense. Blogging is fun and with all the tools and services to help monetize your efforts, when done properly, you can pick up some pocket change relatively easily. Clicks can add up to dollars.
- Have a need or desire that isn’t being met? See what others are offering online and then think about how you can do it better. There may be billions of sites online, but only a small percentage of those are actually doing things in such a way as to produce a reliable income.
Instead of holding back; think about how you can push forward! Yes, you have to spend some money to make money. The smarties are those who have the courage and vision to spend money when opportunity presents itself while others are locking down their pocketbooks. And, when money is spent wisely you get ROI down the road. The road that leads us out of recession can easily be your road to additional income.
Since new Web sites get very little exposure for 6-9 months or more due to search engine delays, now is the time to get the ball rolling and to fine tune your site, pitch and product. The neat thing about online is that if you spend your time networking, investigating, testing and playing, amazing things can happen. You’ll never know unless you try!
By working in the evenings for a couple of hours and on weekends, you can build a side business that can help with rising costs while building a solid foundation that will be in place when the clouds lift.
When it come to the “R” word being tossed around, think ahead — this too shall pass. And when it does, you’ll be ready!
At your service,
Judith
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When I discuss online marketing, you’ll often hear me mention your “marketing arsenal.” There is no one thing to do, one thing to buy, one thing to set up that can be considered your sole marketing effort that allows you to sit back and watch the dollars roll in as many would like to believe. Online marketing requires ongoing effort, testing, activities, participation — for perpetuity. This is the nature of the online beast.
Your marketing arsenal includes a plethora of activities, from SEO, SEM, to PPC, Blogging, Networking, eZines, Article Writing, Social Networking, ad buys and the list goes on. This is interactive technology after all and the more you interact; the better you will do.
What many overlook is how advertising off-line can be an extremely effective way to drive traffic to your site. Of course your domain, ad text and ad placement and design can all affect how many will remember your ad and go to your site. When done properly, you will see a spike in your site’s traffic and you’d better be ready to convert those visitors!
I read an interesting study on the value of off-line advertising driving visitors to Web sites and thought I would share that with you today.
Print Newspaper Ads Drive Online Research, In-Store Purchases
So with all you do online; at the end of the day don’t forget about all the off-line venues that can help to expose new customers to your site!
At your service,
Judith
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When this all began in the early 90s you could put up a site and it was indexed. Now, you have to wait 6-9 months or more to see if and where you’ll land.
In the old days, the chances of the best site pulling above the fold was pretty good. Now, that’s not the case. You have to weed through ad sites, dead sites and sites that are just a mess (or have the most inbound links which makes them the best dontcha know!).
Before search engine rankings and getting found became a science fair project, Google actually was the best search engine around. Now, those who know better know better.
Years ago, searchers were so mesmerized with this new technology that they visited site after site looking for the best info they could find. Now, they simply click on the first link they come across assuming tacit approval from the search engine bi-polar algorithms. You know what happens when you assume?
At the start forward thinkers were willing to try new things, experiment and think outside the box whether there was even a box or not. Now, we just want packaged solutions that make things happen with no effort and the least amount of expense.
In the beginning, folks like me had allot to learn. And it was like a drug — we couldn’t get enough, we learned new things almost every hour on the hour and still wanted to learn more! It was downright exciting — and for me it still is — but it seems to be a dwindling club I belong to. Now, many choose to be lemmings not leaders.
Ahhhh, the good old days…
At your service,
Judith
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