The key to promoting your real online business is website traffic. There is no way you can make money without it. One of the best types of traffic is traffic that comes from the search engines. You might wonder if it is practical to try and get traffic from the search engines. There are a lot of competing websites out there and you might not be able to beat them in rankings.

You would be surprised at the type of results that you can get. For example, we sell a book with the title of „Thomas Jefferson Education.“ At the time we wrote this, our website was ranked #3 for this keyword, which places us on the first page on the Google website. Interestingly enough, out of all of the websites that are ranked for this term, we are one of only two web sites on the first page of Google that sells the book.

Do you see how powerful this is? With a high ranking and little competition, this gives us a significant advantage. There are times where we even had a higher search engine ranking than the publisher of the book. Amazon has also ranked well for this book, but they only have used copies.

One question I am often asked in particular is „Is there a way to know exactly what Google looks for?“ Google’s search engine algorithm is as closely guarded as Coca-Cola’s formula for making soda. No one knows what it is exactly.

This is why you should have a certain level of skepticism if someone claims they are going to show you „all the secrets to dominating the search engines.“ They really cannot because the only people that TRULY know the secrets work for Google and the specific details of those secrets change all the time.

Does that mean they do not know what they are talking about? No, you can always experiment and discover different things. However, it is always going to be speculation because Google guards their secret algorithm very closely.

So what is the key to getting high listings in the search engines? The key is to increase the amount of backward links you have to your website. A backward link is when another website links to your website. Google uses that to determine if your site is important.

What Google does is look at the types of links that are coming back to your web site. For example, if you have a butterfly web site and another web site links to yours with the keyword „Life Cycle of Butterflies“, Google will determine that your web site is about butterflies. The more links, the higher ranking.

So how do you get the links so Google can make that determination?

1. Linkback exchanges: With a linkback exchange you offer to link to someone else’s website if they agree to link to your website.

2. Write a press release: You can write a press release and submit it online about your company. You need to include a link to your website to get any benefit. If a news website uses your release, they will publish it along with a link back to your web site. An example of a press release site is http://www.free-press-release.com/

3. Article writing: With an article, you can create back links by writing articles and submitting them to different article directories. Each directory you submit to creates a back link to your website. In addition, ezine publishers and blog owners look for articles that they can publish in their ezine or blog. If your article is selected, this creates another back link to your website each time this happens. One of the best article directories on the internet can be found at http://ezinearticles.com/

Out of all of these strategies, I personally prefer article submissions. They give you the biggest „bang for your buck“ because one article can continue to create back links to your website for months or even years to come. What this does is gives you a residual source of traffic so that you can promote your real online business effectively.

If you want to continue to attract customers to your web site, a mini course is a great way to do so. Here are some of the more technical aspects of how to actually implement a mini-course for your internet marketing business.

The first step is to send your visitor the first email. This is part 1 of your mini-course and it welcomes them and provides the introductory lesson. This email is received immediately upon subscribing. Part 2 of the mini-course should be sent 2-3 days later on a different topic of the course. In the 3rd email, you may want to promote an affiliate program or product you want to sell. The 4th email should include part 3 of the mini-course. The key is the provide these emails in that 2-3 day period. 2-3 days is a good level of frequency.

If you are doing a product launch with a teleseminar, you may want to use a mini-course as well. You do not have to launch the mini-course first; you can do both at the same time. The primary purpose of the mini-course is that it gives a valid reason in the mind of your subscriber for emailing them so frequently.

The next step after the mini-course is delivered is to offer content that is of value to your subscriber every 7 days. This content can be in the form of a newsletter or tips. In your internet marketing business, you include the mini-course and the follow up tips in your follow up emails in your autoresponder.

On top of the mini-course and newsletter, you can also send a message to your entire list at the same time. This is called a broadcast email. You would use broadcasts to promote upcoming events like teleseminars or webinars. You would also use a broadcast for any time sensitive information. For example, if you have an offer that expires at a certain time, you can send a reminder to your list to let them know this. When you send a broadcast email, your entire list receives it at the same time.

Now that you understand how a mini-course is used, you have everything you need to know to implement it successfully in your internet marketing business. So go out there and get your mini-course set up right away!

As a promoter of home based business opportunities, it can be difficult reaching your goals. One of the biggest reasons why many people struggle is because of lack of effective time management. Here are some great tips to assist you.

1. Write down everything you need to do

When you start your day, begin with the end in mind by writing down what you need to do. Focus mainly on the activities you have to handle yourself, not delegated activities. Constantly look over your list and track your progress. Anything that you did not get done that day, move it over to tomorrow’s list.

The list helps you in that it reminds you what you need to do during the day. Put the most important tasks first and work from there. If you do that and you have a lot of unexpected things that occur, you will at least have handled the most important items you needed to do.

2. Do not Live in Email

Checking email can waste a lot of your time when building home-based business opportunities. It typically leads to one thing after another and gets you off course. You should check your email at a scheduled time during the day so that it does not interfere with your high payoff activities and you can better manage your time and schedule.

One common misconception is that email is not distracting if you do not reply, only check. This is not true because even if you only read, it still takes some of your mindshare away from other activities that are more productive for building your business.

3. Do not Waste Time Surfing the Internet

Wasting time surfing on the internet is very easy when you run home-based business opportunities. You may not notice how much time you spend on surfing activity that is not productive. Obviously, the internet has some use in building your business. That being said, you need to make sure you restrict non-productive use. Productive internet use is anything that generates revenue for your business, like internet marketing and advertising related activities.

4. Be Wary of Phone Time

As owners of home-based business opportunities we do need to use the phone. The key is to manage when and how we use the phone and not have it dictated to us. When you are working on productive activity, make sure that you have your incoming calls received by an assistant or let them go to voice mail. Once you pick up the phone it is hard to get off if the activity is not productive. This way you can keep your focus on the activities that are going to generate income for your business.

Take some time to evaluate how you spend your day. Look at the time you spend on email, on the phone and surfing the internet. Apply some of these suggestions so you can improve your time management ability.

When it comes down to taking action, I do not spend a lot of time meditating on it. I go out there, do what I have to do and worry about the consequences later. This would be perfect if I did not care about criticism, however, the fact is I do care.

When it comes down to concerning myself in the affairs of others, I do not. My philosophy is if they want to know how I think, they can ask me. However, I am not in the business of dishing out unsolicited advice to people.

That being said there are a lot of people who have no problem with sharing their opinion, solicited or unsolicited. If you do things in a public light, many people will have their opinions about what you do and how you do it. This certainly applies if you are running a home internet business.

As the owner of a home internet business, you can expect to receive a ton of unsolicited emails from people trying to help you correct your „mistakes“. They have no problems with telling you what they do not like and they assume that what they do not like others do not like it either. In fact, they will even believe that you have some type of „hidden agenda“ with anything that you do.

It is hilarious to read an email that is 2-3 pages long from a stranger as to why I am doing what I am doing. The type of insight that these people must have is truly amazing that they can read my mind. I wish I could read minds like that!

This is exactly what I learned from Ricky Nelson about online business opportunities. As the son of Ozzie and Harriet, Ricky wrote a song that I liked as a kid. His style was more of the malt shop songs from the 50’s until suddenly he had a change in style. It was made very clear how much of a shift he made at a concert he did in New York at Madison Square Garden. Everything was different, his music, his hairstyle and his clothes.

Well the crowd did not appreciate his differences and let him know. They booed him halfway through the show and Ricky left the stage as a result. Later on, he decided to write down how he felt in the words to another song:

„I went to a Garden Party, to reminisce with my old friends, a chance to share some memories, and play our songs again.

When I got to the Garden Party, they all knew my name, but no one heard the music- I didn’t look the same.

But it’s all right now. I learned my lesson well. You see you can’t please everyone so you gotta please yourself.“

This became the song „Garden Party“ and it made Ricky a fortune, going gold and selling over a million copies. The album cover features Ricky in a black and white tux, holding a guitar in defiance and confidence.

Rickys personal anthem was as follows, „you can’t please everyone, so you gotta please yourself.“ I would also add, you „gotta please the Lord.“

The key lesson that I learned from Ricky Nelson is to be true to yourself. After all, if the critics knew what they were talking about, they would be building their own home internet business instead of criticizing yours!

As an internet marketing business owner, a mini-course is an excellent strategy to market your web site. These are some of the different steps to setting up your mini-course to drive visitors back to your website.

The first step is to send your visitor the first email. This is part 1 of your mini-course and it welcomes them and provides the introductory lesson. This email is received immediately upon subscribing. Part 2 of the mini-course should be sent 2-3 days later on a different topic of the course. In the 3rd email, you may want to promote an affiliate program or product you want to sell. The 4th email should include part 3 of the mini-course. The key is the provide these emails in that 2-3 day period. 2-3 days is a good level of frequency.

If you are doing a product launch with a teleseminar, you may want to use a mini-course as well. You do not have to launch the mini-course first; you can do both at the same time. The primary purpose of the mini-course is that it gives a valid reason in the mind of your subscriber for emailing them so frequently.

Once your visitor has received all of the parts to your mini-course, you should send emails featuring tips and strategies once every 7 days. This is like a newsletter for your internet marketing business. Both the mini-course and the newsletter should be loaded up into your autoresponder as follow up emails.

In addition to follow-up emails, you should also use the broadcast feature when appropriate. The broadcast feature allows you to send emails to your entire list immediately. There are several reasons why you may want to do this as the owner of an internet marketing business. Maybe you have a new product that you are launching and you want to tell your list about it. When you use a broadcast email, whatever you send is going to go to every subscriber who is still actively subscribed to your list.

Now that you understand how a mini-course is used, you have everything you need to know to implement it successfully in your internet marketing business. So go out there and get your mini-course set up right away!