Now that you have some idea of how to do it, here is a checklist for helping you get started:

1. Take care of the administrative tasks. This is the foundation of your business. It includes things like setting up a business bank account, business books to track your income and creating a filing system. You’ll also want to think about how you organize your information on your computer, as well as how you organize your time to get everything done.

2. What are you really passionate about? The truth is, not everything we’re passionate about can become a business, like teaching grammar school kids or something like that. However, there are thousands of topics out there that people are passionate about, like hobbies, that make great businesses. Why not turn your hobby into a business?

Once you answer this question, then you’ll need to decide whether or not you’ll create your own products, or you’ll sell someone else’s. You can always create your own products later. Personally, not having to create products is a major advantage of affiliate marketing. Also, if you want to expand your product line, affiliate products are a great way to do just that.

3. Will you build a website? Whether you build a website is really totally up to you.  If you read Anthony Borelli’s Affiliate Millions, then you know that there are plenty of people out there making a lot of money without a website.

Although some business models do work better than others, and some ways of doing business are easier than others, you need to find the specific formula that will work best for you. If you choose a model you won’t work on, or your won’t do, then it’s the wrong business model for you.

My specific business model is based on my personality, as well as doing those things that have made me a lot of money. This includes content rich, topical, affiliate sites, my main website where I sell my products and writing, and then my blog. Most of my business is automated now, and I spend most of my time writing and marketing, with writing being my favorite task. I now have a business I enjoy and works for me.

4. How will you market? Some marketing techniques are easier than others. Some are also more effective than others. Before you commit to one or two specific techniques, become a master of your technique. Learn everything you can about it, and do it to the very best of your ability.

5. What writing do you need to do? Writing includes a lot of things like site content, ads, articles, press releases, or any other type of writing you need to do. Break these tasks down into bite size chunks and do a little at a time. Find ways to automate, and of course, if you hate writing, find other ways to get your content. If you have a little cash, you always have a way to have someone else do it.

6. What tools do you need to get the job done easier, faster, and better? Before you start spending a lot of money on software, scripts, or any other types of tools, take a look around and find the best deals. There’s tons of free tools out there you can get that will do the job better than a lot of paid versions. Some good places to look are:

Webmaster Free - You’ll find just about everything you can imagine here for helping you build websites. This is a software site, and it’s fully searchable.

FreewareHome - This is my favorite site for just about any kind of software, especially stuff to help me with my writing. This site contains over 7,000 software programs, and it’s all free, fully functional versions.

Hot Scripts - This is the number one site on the internet for scripts to build your website, market, and do a lot of other things. A lot of these scripts are free, and they can help you get rid of a lot of the redundant tasks involved in running your business.

Whether you sell your own products or not, an autoresponder is indispensible in running your business. This will automate more of your business tasks than any other tool, except automated payment processing if you sell your own products. Don’t forget to consider this when setting up your business.

7. What do you need to do to automate your business? Some tasks can’t be completely automated unless you outsource them. Then again, there are some tasks you’ll only need to do once, and then you don’t have to do it again. What’s important here is to not waste your time on tasks that don’t contribute to the overall growth of your business. Automate, upsell, cross sell, and find ways to automate as much of your business as possible. You’ll be glad you did because you won’t waste your time on things that aren’t important.

8. What’s your overall goal for your business? Too many start out with the idea of starting a business to make a lot of money. Then they fail. Unfortunately, most won’t try again. If you’re truly committed to success, and you want your business to succeed, you’ll have a valid goal for your business.

Be specific, like making X amount of dollars per month by selling X number of products. When you apply numbers to your business, and do it in a practical way, then you’ll recognize what you really need to do to reach whatever your income goal is.

Now, what are you waiting for?

First, I wouldn’t own 10 domains. It’s a lot to manage. I would buy one domain, preferably my name, (which I do own), and I would build subdomains for anything else I needed. Most web hosting allows you to have unlimited sub domains, so unless you’re doing a lot of different businesses and just want to spend the money, one domain is sufficient.

One thing I want to mention here is that many internet marketing gurus insist you have to buy a domain name that’s related to your topic. That it will help you rank higher in the search engines than a name would. BRAVO SIERRA! I’m not saying this is a lie. What I’m saying is that you can get to the top of the search engines using your name, or some derivation of it, or you can use some other type of general name, and get just as good results. If you don’t believe, go on over to Alexa and take a look at the top sites on the internet, the ones that get the most traffic.

The number one site on the internet is Yahoo. You don’t see search engine in the name, just the name. Same goes for Google, and heck, Microsoft abbreviates to MSN. Microsoft also owns Live, as well as the Microsoft domain, and all of these are names.

Which brings me to my next point. If I had to do it all over again, I would build one website, under my name, and I would set it up on a Wordpress platform, build a blog, and a content rich website. Then I would add subdomains, lots of them, each with an individual product I had created. Straight sales letter, and automate the whole thing.

Which performs better, a content site or a sales letter? Regardless of which one you use, you should be clear what the purpose of the main page is. As for which performs better, I’m in the camp that says content sites do better. Again, look at the list at Alexa. They’re all content sites, and many of them are Web 2.0 sites.

Now, when I first started off, many of the things I’m talking about doing, I couldn’t have done. Therefore my business has evolved. In the beginning I could have spent more time marketing affiliate programs until I built up a base of knowledge to sell my own products. Now that I have that base, you’ll be seeing quite a few new products from me this year, and it will be more about catering to the needs of those who need what I have to offer. It will include lots of stuff that’s short and sweet, as well as stuff that’s low priced so it’s affordable for anyone who wants to get started online.

The most important thing I want to say here is to get started. Choose what you want to do. Stick with it. Have a plan and have a tight focus. Every time you’re offered a new product, ask yourself: “Will this help me get to where I want to go in my business?” If the answer is no, then don’t buy it because it’s a waste of money.

Tomorrow I’ll have a checklist/questionnaire you can download and complete. You can use this to help you decide what kind of business you want to run, how much money you want to make, and then create a plan for getting started, as well as doing all of the tasks you need to do to make money.

First, one of the most important things you can use in your business to help automate is an autoresponder service. The reason is that you can schedule your messages to go out at specific times, as well as having the system handle the subscribes and unsubscribes. This may not seem very important when you’re first starting off because you don’t have a list. However, as your list grows, it can quickly become time consuming to handle adding and deleting subscribers.

If you’re just starting off, you may want to try a free service to help you get started. One of my readers offers a service you may find helpful: Easy Responders. You may be thinking that this is just one more thing you need to learn how to do, but believe me, it’s worth it. As your lists grow, autoresponders will save you a lot of time.

If you want to host your own autoresponders so you save the monthly fee, there are two scripts here I recommend:

Infinite Responder - unlimited autoresponders, unlimited subscribers. Can also be used to as a newsletter emailer.

FMLP Lite - I actually installed this script for a client, and it’s very easy to use, and you can install it in just a few minutes.

Next, if you’ve built content websites for your business, then you’ll want to add some RSS feeds to your site. RSS means Really Simple Syndication. It is a search engine friendly type of code you can use to add constantly updated content to your websites. What this does for you is it allows you to offer constantly updated content on your website. Because your content is constantly updated, it brings the search engines back to your site more often, and it keeps your rankings high.

If you host your own Wordpress, this is easy because you can use a plugin like Inline RSS. You just upload the plugin to your plugins directory, activate it, and follow the instructions in the readme file. For an example of this plugin in action, you can see it here on my blog: Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews.

If you want to add RSS to your website, there are other tools you can use to do this. What you will need is an RSS parser. What the parser does is allow you to display these scripts on your site.

Carp is a free script you can use to add RSS feeds to your site. RSS Mini is another good script for creating sites from RSS. You can do a search in your favorite search engine for “add rss feeds to your site” “convert rss to html”, etc. There are plenty of scripts available to help you do this, and most are pretty easy to install.

One thing I want to mention about Carp is that you need to make sure you can install this on your website. It may or may not work, depending on how your website hosting is set up.

Another way to offer self updating content is to add the ability for visitors to comment. Free classified ad sites, video sites, and article directories are all examples of sites where you get others to create the content for you. These types of sites are usually pretty easy to get indexed in the search engines, and you can make a lot of revenue from monetizing the content.

The secret here is to use scripts that do all of the work for you. You don’t want to spend all of your time approving articles, videos, ads, etc. Use scripts that do the work. The number script directory on the internet is Hot Scripts. You’ll find plenty of scripts here to help you do things in your business and a lot of them are free.

If you blog like I do, you may not always be able to blog every day. That doesn’t mean you can’t have content posted to your blog whenever you want. You simply need to choose a blog client that will allow you to future post. Wordpress will allow you to do this whether you use the hosted version or host it yourself. With Blogger, you can simply set up an autoresponder, create a secret email address on Blogger, and load up the autoresponder with your posts. When choosing your blog client, this is definitely something you want to consider.

Next is payment processing. Again, this like the example with the autoresponders. When you’re first starting off, it may not matter as much because you may only be making a few sales. As your business gains momentum, it will quickly become a hassle every time you have to email or mail the product to the customer.

If you sell digital products, it’s very easy to automate. You can use sites like Clickbank or PayDotCom. Not only will using these sites allow you to automate the distribution of your products, but you also have an instant affiliate program for your business.

The advantage of Clickbank is that it’s well established, but they will also handle all of your customer service for you. There will be times when you have to get involved if the customer didn’t receive the product. Unless you have broken links on your site or a breakdown in the scripts you use to automate with, it’s very rare. The disadvantage to Clickbank is that this site doesn’t handle physical products.

With Pay Dot Com, you can add one product for free. After that, it’s $29.95 for a premium account, but you can add unlimited products. I believe they also allow you to add physical products, making this site a little more flexible. You will need to pay your affiliates yourself, but this is easy to do by downloading your mass pay file and using the mass pay feature at Pay Pal.

You’ll also need to provide customer service for your products, but if you’ve set up your product correctly, the time spent doing this should be minimal.

There are plenty of other affiliate networks you can use to create an affiliate program for your business. Some cost more than others, but this will allow you to expand the area of your market. What’s most important here is to automate every step in the sales process to save you time in getting your orders processed and getting the product to the customer. Find ways to outsource your customer service and affiliate program at a minimal charge (think Clickbank), and you can apply some major leverage to your business.

With marketing, it’s a whole lot harder to automate, and that’s where I spend most of my time working. However, since my primary means of promoting my business is article writing, it’s really a whole lot easier because I use Article Marketer. Article Marketer allows me to determine when my articles go out so I can load up a bunch of articles at one time, set the date to start sending them out, and they’ll continue to get added to directories whether I’m submitting or not. This makes it much easier for me. I can write my articles when I have time, upload them, and the system takes care of the rest.

My advice here is to write your marketing plan first. Decide how you will market. Then, look for software, preferably free, that you can use to help make the job easier. There is literally tons of free software out there to do everything from uploading your videos to the video sites, to submitting ads. All it takes is a little research (For my premium members, you’ll find all that stuff in the members’ area.)

Finally, although this isn’t something you can automate, it is something I recommend you do as you will find that it really cuts down on the amount of email you have to sort through.

I use a help desk now because too many people use the autoreply function to promote their businesses. The problem here is that if you take the time to go through these emails and actually ask questions, you’ll find out that most of these people won’t answer you back. This is a major time waster. Also, I end up with 100s of emails in my inbox that I have to wade through to find what I really need to read.

The advantage of using my help desk is that I can more quickly locate the information the customer is looking for, whether it’s the download link for a product, or a specific email message the customer may not have gotten. Once you start using a help desk you’ll see a big difference in the amount of time you spend on email. Ultimately, with my help desk, I’m able to answer questions quicker, provide more timely and relevant information to my customers and readers, and get it done a whole lot faster than if I were using email. When someone posts to my help desk, I’m guaranteed to get the message. The person requesting help is guaranteed to get an answer.

Also, this is another thing you should consider. I don’t spend more than 30 minutes a day, if that, reading my email. I look for those messages that are important, and I delete the rest. I read what I need to read and the rest goes in the trash.

What I want to stress here is that your time is valuable. You want to spend your time doing activities that make you money. Your customers are important. They’re the lifeblood of your business, and it’s vital that you communicate with them. You can do that easily, through a blog, offering a FAQ, having resources available on your sites to help answer their questions.

Take care of your customers first. Take care of your administrative tasks as efficiently as possible. Spend the bulk of your time doing activities that generate income.

After all, isn’t the purpose of starting your business to have both financial and time freedom?

However, not everyone wants to market affiliate programs. The problem is, if you want to market your own products or services, you will have to build your own website. Maybe that’s the reason that 50 percent of the small businesses in the United States don’t have an online presence. What they don’t understand is that they could radically improve their revenues by spending a few hundreds on a website to get started.

For those of you who absolutely positively cannot stomach the idea of building a website, there is hope for you.

Today I want to share with all of you several ways that you can build websites without ever learning HTML or anything more than copy and paste (Now if you want to go completely without a website, follow one of the two suggestions above).

If you plan to sell affiliate programs, you’ll want to sell multiple affiliate programs. You can do this by writing articles, blog posts, and reviews. The easiest way to get started here is with a blog. You might also want to consider Squidoo.

The advantages of blogs is that you can add multiple pages, so you can write about a wide variety of affiliate programs related to your topic. Blogs are also easy to monetize with things like Google Ads, and if you use Blogger, it quickly gets indexed by Google and tends to rank higher.

The disadvantage is that if you don’t like to write, or you don’t want to spend time building up a content rich site, then you won’t want to blog.

The best blogging platforms online to use are:

Blogger - This platform has a ton of advantages. The only disadvantage is that you can’t future post.

Wordpress.com - This site offers a lot more features than Blogger, and it indexes well in the search engines. Avoid posting too many reviews and not enough content though. Your blog could get deleted.

Personally, if I planned to build a website without building a website, I would build Squidoo lenses. They’re easy to build, don’t require a lot of writing, and you can set them up quickly. Build enough of them, and you can earn a fulltime income. Then all you’d have to do is spend a few hours a month maintaining them.

To check out Squidoo, click here: Squidoo.

Here are several other sites, that if you want to create your own products, are great ways to get started online:

CafePress - Not only can you offer tshirts, and tons of other types of gifts here, but you can also offer books and CDs. You can even make your digital downloads more valuable by offering them on CD. You can also offer a newsletter for your site, and there’s a very inexpensive upgrade you can get so you can offer unlimited products and categories in your site. The only disadvantage here is that if you don’t know how to do graphics, you’ll have trouble getting started.  There’s also an affiliate program that pays 15% for affiliates, so you have access to millions of affiliates to sell your products.

Lulu - If you want to create your own ebooks, books, software, and other digital or CD/DVD content, this is one of the most flexible sites on the internet. It’s very easy to use, and you can get started today. You can set up your own presence on Lulu, and you even have access to your own blog. The only disadvantage is that you can’t build a list of your customers.

Create Space - This is Amazon’s free version of print on demand, and you can use this site to create an e-store with your own products. If you don’t want to create your own products, you can join the Amazon affiliate program and create A Stores with any combination of products you like and on any topic you like. Create Space allows you to customize your store to look like your site. A Store only has basic customizations.

Zlio - This site allows you to create unlimited stores on just about any topic you like, and you can easily customize them. The advantage here is that you have access to millions of products, which means you can build stores on just about any topic.

Virtual Portals - If you want to sell Clickbank products, this is a good place to get your own site. The advantage here is that it’s free. Usually, if you want customized Clickbank stores on specific topics, you’ll need to either buy scripts to create your own, or you’ll need to sign up for programs that offer you the opportunity to customize.

My Space - If I were planning on setting up a presence on the internet using a site that had the most tools and options, this would be it. The reason is that you can add a subscription box to your profile, you can upload videos, blog, participate in forums and groups, as well as submit free classifieds. The beauty of this site is that it’s ranked in the top 10 sites on the internet for most traffic, and so it’s an easy way to create a lot of visibility for your business. Although they claim to discourage commercial activity, if you add good content, you won’t have any trouble promoting yourself.

Project PayDay - This, and Squidoo, are my favorite sites for those who are new to the internet. It’s very easy to get started, you don’t need a website, you have multiple ways to earn money, and you can start earning money today.

Whether you choose to build a website or not, you can still make money online. These are just some different ways to do it, and it’s not as complicated as you think.

In other words, this is a way for you to connect with others online and build your presence online. The real secret to getting traffic online, which no one talks about, is to go where the traffic is, whether it’s article directories, search engines, social networks, other directories, forums, etc. The bonus is that these types of sites allow you to also connect.

Although there are many types of social networks online, and you’ll want to look at these especially if you have a niche topic (crafts, real estate, gardening, and thousands of others), there are general sites you can join and still connect with your market because these sites also offer opportunities for you to niche. Examples of these types of sites are Facebook and MySpace.

Your first steps on marketing on these types of sites is to sign up and create your profile. When creating your profile, you’ll want to include several different things:

1. A keyword rich title. Keywords are what searchers use to find you. So, if you’re promoting real estate (this is just an example), include this in your title.

2. Clearly outline your purpose on the site. The biggest problem with general social networking sites is that if you’re not clear about what you’ve signed onto the site for, you’ll have all kinds of nuts approach you. People looking to cyber, people who are lonely and looking for sexual experimentation, you get the drift. Although they have a right to do that online, I, and you, also have a right to be left alone. I’m here to do business, and reputation is important. I don’t want to be associated with that kind of stuff, and neither should you if you’re trying to do business online.

If you sell that kind of stuff, then I would highly recommend you approach all of the perverts online you can. There is a market for it.

3. Complete your profile information. This includes telling others about yourself, listing your interests, and including information the type of people you would like to connect with. Two of the most important elements you should make sure you include are a subscription box, as well as links to your website. Include a complete description about your website to tell others what your site is about.

Once you’ve completed your profile, start searching for others to connect with. There is some software available, for sites like MySpace, you can use to help you find more friends but be careful. This kind of software can sometimes get you in trouble, and some sites, like MySpace, limit the number of people you can connect with each day.

With MySpace, you’ll find a general people search, so you may have to wade through a lot of profiles to find what you’re looking for. With Facebook, you can actually join geographical networks, as well as groups on topics you’re interested in. You may also receive invitations from others to join groups, as well as connect.

Facebook allows you to join groups, which are also forums to talk about subjects you’re interested in. What I like about Facebook is that not only can you join groups on your topic, but there are groups there so you can get involved with groups that deal with social issues, as well as helping others, and you can also connect with those groups that want to help.

If you want to connect, the major sites I use are Facebook and MySpace. You’ll find my profiles here:

Meet Me On MySpace

Meet Me On Facebook

You can actually pick one network to be on, but I would advise that you find at least two or three you like and sign up. Promote yourself and your business. The reason I recommend more than one network is that it’s more publicity, but each network has something it’s really strong in that can help you promote your business.

If you visit my profile on MySpace, you’ll see that I have a really cool background, my dream car. You can dress up profile, put your favorite music on there, add videos (great way to promote your business), and let others comment. When you comment, one thing I would advise is to avoid is using graphics in your comments. Although some people swear by them as a way to get traffic, about all it really does is wreak havoc with your profile and make it slow to load. You can choose whether or not you allow comments, and you can choose whether or not the commentor can use HTML to comment.

To find really cool backgrounds and express yourself, you can do a search in your favorite search engine for free myspace layouts. If you want some really nice layouts, as well as more information on getting more from MySpace, read Crack the MySpace Code.

With Facebook, one of my favorite features is called “Shoe Box”. Shoe Box is a really cool application you can add to your profile to display your websites. This is a must have, as is Lemonade Stand so you can sell directly from your profile. Facebook has hundreds of applications you can easily add to your profile to dress it up, and you can even make your own through WidgetBox. If you can answer just a few questions, it’s pretty easy to make applications here.

Now, for those of you who are interested in other sites to market on, I recommend you check out Alexa. If you look in the top right corner of the page, you can access the top traffic sites by geography (use these sites to market in your home country if you live outside the US), by the top traffic sites, and the top US traffic sites. I use this list all the time to help me target my market and see what’s hot on the internet.

First, if you write keyword rich articles, and submit them to a lot of directories, this can take care of both your search engine optimization, as well as your linking strategy.

Second, you brand yourself on your topic. Branding is important because only those who are looking for what you are writing about, selling, will visit your sites. This creates a very targeted form of traffic for you. Targeted traffic is more likely to subscribe to your lists, as well as buy from you. Not only are you offering value, but you are demonstrating how you can solve your visitors, and customers’ problems.

Writing articles isn’t as difficult as you think. In fact, if you really know your topic well, you’ll find it very easy to write about.

Your first step should be to forget about what you learned in high school English class. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t use good English. (Ms. Wallace if you’re out there I really want to thank you for teaching me grammar. It really helped.)

What I’m saying is you don’t have to focus on writing perfect paragraphs or writing in a formal tone. This is an article, and you only need about 500 words to really communicate your message, so write in a conversational tone.

The easiest types of articles to write are lists, tips, and recipes (How To). You can simply write down your tips and then add a short paragraph or two to explain each one. With a how to, you give the steps to doing something, like a recipe. I like this kind of article because I like to learn how to do things, and this type of article can really drive traffic to your site because others want to learn how to do things.

When you’re ready to start writing your article, start with the title. You want to include your keywords in the title.

Here are some examples of titles for the type of articles we talked about. Use them to create your own.

How to Build a Birdhouse in One Hour

5 Tips for Growing Bigger Roses in Your Garden

10 Things You Can Do to Get More Traffic Online (List)

Once you’ve created your title, then write down your tips, or your list. If you’re doing tips, write one or two short paragraphs to explain each one. If you’re writing the how to, break it down into steps and then explain the steps.

Give the basics. If you want to create a more thorough treatment of the topic, you can create a report, or a complete tutorial on your website.

Your next step is to write your resource box. Your resource box tells the reader a litle bit more about you, gives a link to your website and maybe even offers a bonus for visting. This is a great way to build your list.

Keep your resource box short. Most sites won’t accept one over 250 characters and some will allow you to use up to 500 characters. If your resource box is longer than your article, there’s definitely a problem though.

Don’t use more than two to three links in your resource box, and don’t use links in the body of your article. Many sites won’t allow you to have links in the body anymore, so don’t use them.

Use a text editor to write your articles, and make sure the sentences wrap naturally. You only want to use hard returns at the end of the paragraphs.

Don’t format for 65 characters anymore. This one happens a lot still, but many sites won’t accept articles that are formatted this way.

The best place to get information on article writing and submission is Article Marketer. For those that want to learn more about writing an article, and doing it fast, listen to Maria Marsala’s “8 Minute Article”. In this audio, she actually teaches you how to write an article, and she makes it easy. Her tips have helped me a lot in writing my own.

Try to write at least 2 articles a week. If you have more than one website, write one article per site. Submit regularly to the article directories.

The easiest way to submit is Article Marketer, and they will give you a free account that allows you to submit to 29 directories and 11,000 publishers. You can submit 3 articles a week.

It’s really not as hard as you think either. I once read that if you read three books on a topic, you should glean enough information to make you an expert. I don’t really know how true that is, but once you’ve decided what marketing techniques you want to use, find several books/ebooks on the topic and read them. Study them. Make notes and write down any questions you may have. Go to the search engine of your choice and type in that question. You may be really surprised at how much information you find. You can then get the answers you need to master the topic.

One of the biggest reasons I’m a fan of search engine optimization is that I took the certification course through Web CEO. This program is so good I believe you can learn search engine optimization just from reading the documentation. It’s really that well written, and it explains everything step by step. This is how I learned search engine optimization. I also took their course, but I bought the small business version of the software, and it has over 70 lessons in it. By the time I finished, I felt pretty comfortable optimizing my sites for the search engines.

This software also gives you all of the tools you need to optimize your site, as well as submit it to the search engines when you are finished.

Now, I want to give you some easy tips for search engine optimization. This is a crash course of sorts.

The first thing you need to understand is on page and off page SEO factors. On page factors are the things you control: bolding your words, internal linking, structure of your site. Keywords, and metatags and metatag descriptions are important because this is what will be displayed in your listing in the search engines. You can create your header information by going to Evrsoft and using the free tool there. Just copy and paste the code into the header of your webpage. You want to make all of the on page factors as search engine friendly as possible. Take care of these first, and then worry about off page factors.

Off page factors are things that may or may not be in your control, like who is linking to you, how many links you have and search engine algorithms. A search engine algorithm is simply the factors a search engine uses in order to rank your site.

To raise your rankings in the search engines, here is what I recommend:

1. Make sure you target the correct keywords for your site. You may end up using keyword phrases that don’t get as much traffic, but these phrases will be more targeted, the traffic will be more targeted, and you’ll get better conversions.

2. Don’t optimize your site for one keyword phrase. Optimize different pages for different keywords related to your topic. What happens when you do this is that your site will be found in the search engines for lots of different keywords. I know this strategy works because I did it with my sites, and now my sites are often found on the first page of major search engines for lots of different keywords. In fact, it’s annoying sometimes when I do research to find that I’m the number one listing. Where do I go to find more information on my topic?

3. Build an effective linking program for your site. There are quite a few different ways to do this that is really quite easy.

If you own a blog, get out and post comments on blogs that are relevant for your topic. Some blogs have the no follow tag embedded in their sites, which means you won’t get credit for that link. That’s OK because you want to get your blog noticed. If your comments are relevant, and they build into the conversation, others will visit your blog from that site. Your traffic will build.

Submit to directory sites. If you spend just 30 minutes a day posting your link to directory sites, and you can easily add your site to at least 5 directory sites a day, at the end of a year, you’ll have over 1500 links pointing back to your site. This can not only give you incredible page rank with Google, but it will raise your overall search engine rankings.

The way to do this is to write a good keyword rich description, as well as title. Keep everything you need to post to these directories in a text file and then just copy and paste the information. A faster way to do it is to use a tool like Directory Submitter. You can set up your profile one time and then it will take you to each of the directories. You can build links twice as fast. The free version of this software allows you to submit to 350 directories. You could easily do that in a month.

Vary your titles and descriptions. You don’t want the same title and description on every directory, and this will allow you target different keywords for your topic.

4. Participate in communities, like MySpace and Facebook, forums, and other social networking sites. You can build links, as well as an active presence, on the internet just about anywhere. Go where your market is and talk to them. Write a good signature file, and post about it.

I’m a firm believer in the idea that anyone can write. We all have opinions, and we all have something to say. I think where most people get hung up is on fear of criticism. That’s where you need to develop Rhett Butler syndrome: “Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a damn.”  Let’s face it: there are those on the internet who think their sole purpose in life is to criticize others. Quite frankly, that’s a pretty pathetic existence.

If you have something valuable to contribute in the way of your products and services, and I know many of you do, then get out there and talk about it. Spread the word about your products or services. Sure, you’ll get criticism, but as I have learned, even my critics read me, and even a little bad publicity is better than no publicity at all.

The real secret to getting traffic and sales online, is to get the word out about your business. The internet marketing gurus don’t make a lot of money because they have the best products. They make a lot of money because they are the best at getting the word out about their products and services. You can do the same thing. You may have to start small, but the more you market, the more you will build on your internet presence, and the more traffic and sales you will get. It all adds up.

Finally, for those that feel pressed for time, Web CEO does have a one hour quickstart guide. You can use this to get a crash course in SEO and get your SEO campaigns moving fast.

When you’re first starting out, if you’ve save a bunch of money, you may not have to worry so much about expenses. However, if you’re starting out on a shoe string, then you’ll need to invest a little time in your marketing efforts.

One thing I want to point out here, if you’ve read the series all the way through, you’ll notice there are a lot of things you have to learn to start a business. Starting a business isn’t as easy as knowing how to copy and paste (although John Reese claims it is), you do have to learn a few things before you get started.

I can’t emphasize enough that you have to develop both computer skills and business skills to start a business. Then you need to apply those skills to your business. Success doesn’t usually happen overnight, so if you’re looking to pay the bills really fast, get a pay day loan or get an extra job.

With that said, this post isn’t about teaching you how to write an ad. There’s plenty of good information on the internet to teach you how to do that. What this post is about is giving you the best tips on using free classified ads effectively to promote your business. You can use this one technique successfully to do it, and what I like about free classifieds is that you can use just this one technique. This is especially important if you hate writing, or don’t think you’re a good writer. You will need to do a little writing, but the more ads you write, the better you will get at it. (If you want help on copywriting, see the post I wrote on copywriting).

First, let me tell you I don’t even bother with Craig’s List anymore. Although it is the highest ranking free classifieds site on the internet, it’s fraught with problems. Too many people are using this this site as a forum to post their ideology, and they’ve really ruined it for anyone who wants to sell things.

Another issue is that this site really isn’t set up for business. If you choose any category but small business, you can’t include a link in your ad. The only way around this one is to use a one time autoresponder allowing your visitors to get more information.

The small business category doesn’t allow an image in the ad, so you you don’t get as good of a conversion.

My goal isn’t to discoursage you here. I just want you to understand that there may be better ways for you to get better results.

My best advice, in fact, is to sign up for Travis Sago’s list: The Bum Marketing Method. Travis created a video on using US Free Ads to promote your business. In fact, Travis created a video to show everyone how to create ads on US Free Ads, and recently, he released a 50 page tutorial on using US Free Ads.

What I like the most about this marketing technique is that it’s easy. Instead of writing 600 articles, you create 600 ads on US Free Ads. The best part is that you don’t have to have a website or a list because US Free Ads allows you to market affiliate programs (something Craig’s List doesn’t). Travis completely explains how to do this in the video and the ebook. For those of you who are looking to start a business fast and start earning money fast, this is one of the easiest ways to do it.

I’ve also created a lens on Squidoo to show you where the best free classified ad sites are.

Free Classifieds on Squidoo

I’ll be updating this lens again really soon as Yahoo has dropped out of offering free classifieds.

Now, if you’re interested in starting a business fast, here’s what you do:

1. Find a market that you’re interested in promoting. Then you should look for affiliate products related to that topic.

2. Once you’ve found four or five affiliate products you want to promote, then start posting ads. I would start with US Free Ads, but there are other sites on the list.

3. Write a good ad. Start posting. Roboform can help you post faster. Each of these sites is different, so make sure you read the guidelines first. You may be able to post a lot more, and a lot more often than Craig’s List, so use this to your advantage.

4. Post as many ads as you can each day and don’t forget to renew your ads. This way, your ads will be out there earning money for you.

5. Track your ads. If an ad isn’t performing, change one thing at a time until you get it to perform. This could be changing your keywords, rewriting the headline, or something else.

6. Don’t quit. If you really want to succeed, you need to keep going. Keep investing in your business and you’ll succeed.

Writing copy encompasses so much in building your business, and it’s also the most overlooked skill. It’s also a skill that you only develop with practice, and it’s something that I highly recommend you learn.

The easiest way to get started to learn how to write copy, whether you’re writing sales letters, ads, or any other type of promotional material is to start with that type, find sites where you can do research, and study actual copy.

You can do this by studying your local newspaper. Study the ads, study the press releases. Press releases are usually advertorials, and you may even find some press releases that have been converted into newspaper articles.

Study headlines. Headlines are usually the most important element in any sales piece because it’s what gets a reader to read the sales piece.

The easiest way to write a good sales letter, once you understand the fundamentals, is to use software that helps you. Then you know exactly what elements you will need to include in order to create good sales letters.

Another thing you can do to learn is to learn by rote. Find good ads, sales letters, etc., and copy them down. Write them in long hand or copy them into your computer. In the ebook, Web Sales Letter Supreme, the author states that you can become a great copywriter in as little as 30 days doing this.

Below are two resources you can use to help you learn how to write better copy, as well as write your sales letters:

Paperless Copywriting - This is the most complete copywriting package on the planet. You can learn how to write ads, sales letters, emails, and any other type of copy you want to write. Free.

Instant Site Creator - This software will not only make it easier for you to write your sales letters, but it will also format your sales letter into HTML format.

The most important thing I want to emphasize about marketing your business online is that’s it’s more important to be consistent. You also want to test and track whatever you can and eliminate any marketing that isn’t working. Don’t waste your time on internet marketing techniques that don’t work for you, or aren’t getting you the results you want, or worse, anything you won’t do.

My recommendation is that you choose one internet marketing technique, try it out for a month, and see what type of results you get. If you own your own website, then a search engine optimization strategy should be your first step. You don’t have to do anything complicated; just work on optimizing your site, which is easy to do. Web CEO can help you do that. You can also build backlinks by posting to directories (Directory Submitter can help you with this one)

Other techniques you can try are:

1. Article Writing

2. Press Release Distribution

3. Free Classifieds

4. Pay Per Click

5. Joint Ventures

6. Affiliate Program

7. Linking

8. Blog Comments

9. Forum Marketing

10. Ezine Ads

In fact, there are at least 101 internet marketing techniques you can try. Richard Quek, in his book, Exposed: “101 Proven Strategies to Get More Visitors to Your Website in One Day Than Most Websites Get in a Year!” shows that there are at least 101 different techniques, and this doesn’t even take into account blogging.

The first step in creating your marketing campaign is to decide which marketing strategy you will use. Ask yourself what you will stick with. What marketing technique do you feel the most comfortable doing? Since free classifieds are a fairly easy and effective way to get started, especially if you are new to internet marketing, we’ll start with this.

The tips I’m about to give you are tips you can apply to classified writing, but you can also use them to write articles, press releases and other types of sales materials. Although I don’t think you necessarily have to write for the search engines, a little SEO doesn’t hurt, and it can actually help you rank your promotional materials higher in the search engines.

1. Start with your headline. This is how you will get your marketing materials read. Regardless of what it is.

To find good headlines, you need to go to sites for the type of headlines you want to write: classified ad directories, article directories, press release directories.

I use:

 US Free Ads

Ezine Articles

PRWeb

How you craft a headline for an ad will be slightly different from how you create your headline for your article or press release. An article or press release is more like news, where the ad is meant to get the person to click, sign up for your list, or whatever action it is you want your visitors to take. The goal is to get the attention of your readers to get them to read your main piece.

Once you choose the site or sites you want to use to do your headline research, then carefully study the headlines. Copy any that you find useful. Your headline is what you use to get others to read your sales materials. Spend the most time here to get the best results.

You might also want to write several different versions of your headline and test them. If you’re not ready to write your own headlines, and you’re marketing an affiliate program, get ads from the program, rewrite the headlines and use those. You don’t want to use the exact same affiliate materials because they’ve been used already. What you do want to do is change them enough so they are still effective, and they’re fresh.

2. Don’t try to sell in your ad. You want to get the click, and you want to get the person to go to your website or the merchant’s website. The easiest way to do this is to offer something like a report, free piece of software, or something no one else is offering. You want the person to get it from you.

With ads, it’s easy to test. All you have to do is use a unique link. You can get free ad trackers. Just do a search in the search engine for free ad trackers.

One thing I do before I submit anything is to create my sales materials in a text document. I use Notetab Lite, which is free, and I save all of my articles, ads, and other stuff into text files. That way I can quickly copy and paste my ads, articles, press releases, etc. into the appropriate forms. When I organize these text documents, I put everything in the order in which I will paste them. This makes it a whole lot easier.

A faster way to do this is to use Roboform. (This is a free download so you can try it out without having to register for anything.) If you want to learn how to use Roboform in your marketing, and really speed things up, you can download Roboform Magic (This also includes the software download).

Personally, my favorite ad posting software is Cyberfetch, and it offers a lot of free classified ad sites you can post on, and it’s automated. You can try it out for free to see how you like it.

If you decide to use blog comments, forum posting, or any type of marketing like this, there’s really no way to automate these types of posts. Blog blasters, forum blasters, or any type of software like this will only get you banned. I get these types of comments on my blog sometimes, and I mark it as spam so these people can’t post again.

There are several utilities here you can use to help you keep track of both blog comments, as well as forum posting.

Comment Sniper - This software will help you keep track of high traffic blogs so you can be the first to comment. Then everyone has to at least scroll past your comments to post their own. This allows you to get your comments seen and can be used to get others to visit your site.

Comment Kahuna - Helps you find blogs on your topic.

Forum Software - This free tool will help you track at least 15 different forums so you know when they’re updated. Also includes an ebook on forums you can post on.

You can do a search on the internet for free software to help you in your marketing campaigns. Just make sure that the software you download is freeware or open source. This is software you can use to for free.

Now, to get started, decide what internet marketing technique you want to try. Search for sales materials you can study to create your own. Write your own sales materials and then start posting. Test your results.

A Note About Testing: To find out if your campaign is effective, you need to take the number sales and divide it by the number of clicks.

For example, if you receive 10 sales, and you got 1,000 clicks, then your conversion is 1 percent. This may not seem like a lot, but it’s a good conversion rate. You can work on improving it, or you can consider that this is an effective campaign.

If you are using pay per click, or some type of paid advertising, subtract your costs from your sales. If it’s negative, you either want to rewrite the campaign and make it effective, or abandon it and create a new one.

Now that you have an idea of how to start your marketing campaign, write down how you plan to market, find sites to market on, and write your sales materials. We’ll explore some of these techniques in depth next week.

Two resources that might help you:

Free Ad Report - This is the best resource for those who are new to internet marketing. Bob the Teacher shows you some really good ways to market your business online for free using free classifieds and traffic exchanges.

Writing Cash - For those who are interested in using pay per click to sell Clickbank products, and you can use this program to help you sell any kind of products, Eric has created a really nice tutorial to teach you how to make money using pay per click and Clickbank.

Both of these programs require you sign up, but it’s free.