It can be overwhelming trying to evaluate every online business opportunity that comes your way.

It seems there’s another one each day and of course, they all claim to be the latest and greatest opportunity the world has ever seen.

I have been starting and building businesses online and off for over 30 years now and have made 7 figures in both online and offline businesses.

Here’s my quick guideline that will allow you to evaluate any online business in just a few minutes.

For an online business to make any money, you need three things:

1. product(s) to sell

2. traffic to your offer funnel/landing page

3. a conversion process that converts visitors into customers

Let’e address each one separately.

PRODUCT

You really need to have a product line or group of products to sell, not just one product. Ideally, you have a low end, easy entry product under $10 and then other products of higher costs.

The reason why is you need multiple products in order to have a high enough customer value to justify the marketing expense to get traffic.

This is why selling the typical low priced affiliate offers from clickbank, commission junction, etc will not work for you unless you already have a large list you can promote your offers to for free.

The best combination is a business that has low priced products, medium priced products ($100 – $500) and also high ticket products ($1,000 and up).

Even better is if some of the products are monthly subscriptions so you have ongoing cash flow.

Who do you think will be better able to afford the marketing costs to get visitors to see your offers – someone with a one time sale product for $27 or someone with a product line ranging from $10 to $3,000?

One program I’m in has just this – with monthly subscription products at $25, $47 and $100 and 4 more one time purchase products ranging from $500 to $3,500. I’ve seen customer values as high as $800 in this program. See it here.

Who’s going to win in buying traffic – the person who can’t pay more than $15 to get a customer or someone who can spend $500 to get a customer and still make a $300 profit!

So the bottom line in the product section is to calculate what your customer value is and how much you will be able to spend to get a customer.

If the number is too low, you will not be able to buy traffic and therefore have a hard time expanding your business past your current sphere of influence.

TRAFFIC

You are going to need traffic to your offer to make any money.

If you have a large list now and a lot of followers on social media, you will be able to make some money selling anything, but I’m assuming you don’t.

Buying traffic by the click will typically cost 70 cents to one dollar per click/visitor.

The offers you might see to bring your site one million visitors for $100 are worthless – those programs don’t work and you will lose your $100!

Explaining all the different methods people use to claim to bring you cheap traffic is beyond the scope of this post – all you really need to know is that they don’t work!

So, what about free or “organic” traffic?

That’s the best traffic you can get but it takes time and expertise to get it. Learning SEO, social media marketing and other free methods is definitely a good idea but is not going to get you any immediate sales.

All in all, building your own list of people who know, like and trust you is the absolute best long term plan and you should start doing it, just don’t count on it for short term revenue.

But, that said, having the products and the traffic will do you no good at all without . . .

A CONVERSION FUNNEL THAT WORKS

If you bring people – free or paid – to a landing page that doesn’t get opt ins or to a funnel that gets opt ins but no sales, you’re dead in the water.

So, unless you are an expert in building these funnels, look for a program that has a funnel in place with proven conversion numbers.

When you buy cold traffic (from people who don’t know you) you may get 30% opt in at a landing page but only end up with 1% or less in terms of customers.

That tells you right away – if your visitors cost $1.00 each, 30% opt in and 1% of those buy, your cost per opt in is $3.00 and your cost per sale is $300.

So we’re back to what is a sale worth to you – if it’s $500 or more in this example, you’re good. If it’s $15, you’re toast . . .

Naturally, it’s important to measure the conversions at each step of a process and work to improve them over time. The analytics are critical. There are plenty of programs to set up split testing to find out what works best, but you can get a general idea just from the description here.

I’ve had landing pages getting a 3% opt in that with testing and tracking have gotten all the way up to 40%. That makes the difference between making money and losing money.

click here to see the program I’m currently promoting.

We offer a $7 trial of the system we sell so you can see how it all works and decide if it’s something you might like to do.

If you do decide to get involved, I’m here to help you with it each step of the way. You can reach me by phone at 720-890-8760 or by email at joemcvoy@gmail.com

If you have been wondering how to reach more customers, Internet marketing is today’s much needed solution you need. This article will provide you with valuable insight for using Internet marketing to build sales and visibility. Continue reading to find some great tips on Internet marketing.

Try to be as comprehensive and content-oriented as possible when creating your website. You must provide knowledge in a small amount of time so that your prospects understand what they are going to buy. To keep your audience’s attention, make sure you do not repeat any statements and keep out useless and filler content.

“Limited” is a strong keyword to include. A lot of people will go online to do their shopping because they get bored with what is available in their local stores. They are looking for unique, special products. If you decide to make your product a limited edition, there will be a greater sense of urgency and exclusivity associated with buying it.

You might not know it, but you are already equipped with all the resources you need in order to be successful in internet marketing. In reality, the fancy software and get rich quick schemes you find online are not necessary. The only thing that you need is you. It just takes hard work and clear thinking with regards to your approach on marketing.

Internet Marketing

Understand that Internet marketing is not going to be an overnight success, and you should never rely strictly on one method. Building a business takes time and rewards for Internet marketing are sometimes not seen for months. Hold on to your current job until you start to make considerable profits.

Marketing your most profitable products on the internet is just the beginning to internet marketing. Expand on the popularity of those products by bundling them with complementary products. Advertise your big sellers and provide bridges to complementary products once you have sold your most popular product. These complementary products are sold through your more popular products and may not require the same amount of advertising as completely unrelated products.

Make any emails you send out personalized. Customers and whoever else you send email to would much prefer you address them directly instead of just sending an impersonal form letter. There isn’t anyone who enjoys getting hundreds of useless emails on a daily basis. If you personalize your emails, you will stick out from others like you.

As important as it is to have numerous social networking sites, it is equally important that you update all of your profiles. Stagnant profiles are seen as spam.

Offer Free

Offer a free, branded promotional item in venues that promote such items. For example, if it’s a wallpaper, submit it to sites that offer free wallpapers. There are many sites that offer free items that you can submit.

Use social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook and send out information which includes links to your site in your targeted market. Make sure to be careful about sending unwanted spam to people because MySpace has been cracking down, and they have been taking people to court for online harassment.

Cell Phone

You can use your cell phone as a work phone too, just ask your cell carrier if they can give you another number that will route to your cell phone. Therefore, it is wise to get a dedicated number.

Creating and maintaining an interesting blog is a great way to draw in visitors. It is vital that you keep your content fresh by posting on a regular basis. Visitors who want and expect to follow frequent updates will stop by your site over and over again.

Your online business should not be a full-time job until it is really successful. If you enjoy what you are doing, you will have extra motivation to succeed each day.

Focus on building a quality site before you worry about marketing it and obtaining a ranking. This needs to be the beginning step for anyone who is creating an online business. Creating a highly functional and professional site now means less maintenance and fewer headaches later.

Provide a button that allows others to quickly and easily links back to your site. If you find website owners who have similar ideas as you, they will be happy to share links to your website.

Make sure you follow up with your customers. Have them answer a survey or write a review a few days after purchasing a product or service from you.

You can send your customers a page that tells them all about a product before they buy it. This will arm them with more information about what you want them to spend their money on. This approach demonstrates that you want to do more than simply push a sale on them; you want to educate them, and leave the purchasing decision in their hands.

Rotate the content and headline keywords to see if there is a difference in traffic to your site or sales numbers. Once you understand how to incorporate your marketing message, stay with it and use it as your new image. This will pay off in the future with increased customer visits.

Internet Marketing

Internet marketing will help you increase your company’s visibility across the web. Traditional advertising methods just cannot give you the visibility and the worldwide presence that Internet marketing can provide. Internet marketing also allows you to target your advertising to a specific audience

If you take your business seriously, you must take your efforts for Internet marketing seriously. It is unavoidable in today’s market. Internet marketing can mean the difference between failing and succeeding in business. The following tips will show you hot to be successful at Internet marketing.

It’s not imperative to spend thousands of dollars on a marketing consultant. A quick search on the internet can offer many free resources to help you with your marketing needs. Online business communities and marketing blogs are valuable online tools, and many programs offer business development seminars to help local business owners improve their operations.

Interested in advertising over email? Encourage people to give you their email address or to connect with you on social networks by advertising special offers regularly. Let them sign up for contests or freebies when they give you permission to send them emails containing future offerings. People will be more prone to providing their own personal email if it could directly benefit them!

Use “guaranteed” in your ads and content to help boost your internet marketing strategy. A guarantee will let people know that they can trust in your company and your products. Most people work hard to make their money, and knowing you guarantee your products increases their comfort level when it comes to spending that money.

If you website is static and rarely ever changes, perhaps you should consider including a blog on your site. Blogs yield fresh information, which will boost you up in the rankings. With a blog, you can add fresh and exciting content as often as you wish without affecting the business page at all.

Internet Marketing

Internet marketing needs serious research in order to succeed. Get inspiration from the people that have succeeded before you. If you are unable to find a free mentor, you may be able to find a consultant to guide you through internet marketing for a fee. Design a strategy that makes sense for your business, and see it through. While progress may be limited in the beginning, perseverance will show results in the end.

Do not put all your eggs in one basket, so to speak, when involved in Internet marketing. You can give yourself time to grow your business to the point where it can provide you with a regular income. You may want to consider staying at your present job until you have successfully been in business for a while.

Think of something to offer folks that no one else is doing. Cartoons and free e-books are some of the ways that you can create incentive to visit your site. Providing a unique offer will get people excited about your site.

An effective way to provide content that is sought after and to establish respectability on your site is to have interviews from noted people in your industry. Interviews are easy to get because they can be created in audio or video or even even written content. You will gain better feedback if you do some interview with well known people in your industry.

Watching your competition will help you immensely in internet marketing. There is competition for every niche that you could possibly work in.

Offer Discounts

For instance, to sell websites, you could team up with a blogger to offer discounts to his customers. Offer discounts to your partners services or products. This way you can expand your partner’s prospects to include your audience and, in return, he can do the same for you.

Some people assume Internet marketing is unnecessary, but it needs to be a vital part of any company that wants to continue succeeding. Those with online businesses can’t ignore it. The tips provided to you above will help your online business not only stay afloat, but also become successful