When you're first starting an online business, it can be a struggle
finding the money to invest in the things that will grow your business
most. Only later do you discover things all the guru's know that could
have saved you a small fortune. Here are a few things that will help you
save on Internet marketing business necessities.
In order to
be in business on the Internet you DO need a website. Hosting that website
doesn't need to cost you an arm and a leg. Here are two ways to save:
1) Don't
register your domain through your web host. Instead go to a discount
registrar. Your web host will charge you up to $40 or more (per year) just
to conveniently handle your domain name registration. You can register or
renew your domain name yourself for as little as $8 per year. I've set up
a service for my subscribers and clients to do just that at: http://WillieCrawford.com/domains/
How am I
able to offer you such a bargain? I have a domain name reseller account at
Wild West Domains. For around $100 per year, practically anyone can become
a domain name reseller. You are charged a wholesale price for domain name
registrations (and other services offered on my site above). You decide
how much you want to mark up your prices above that. I have practically no
markup because I enjoy helping beginners get off to a good start. I know
that you'll be back for other products and services that I offer - after
you're a big success :-)
2) Consider
getting a web hosting account here:
I have an
account that lets me host up to 50 domains for only $109 per month. That
equates to about $2 per domain, per month. The $109 package that I have
gives me 4400 meg of disk space and 100 gigabytes of monthly bandwidth to
spread among my 50 domains in that account any way that I want to.
The account
above is intended for people who want to open their own web-hosting
business. Basically, you can get one of these accounts and then charge
your online or local customers whatever price you choose. Find 50 local
customers and charge them $100 each and you've just turned $109 into
$5000. That's a nice monthly revenue stream and it's also in-line with
what offline businesses expect to pay.
The above
account isn't for everyone. It doesn't come with a lot of free tech
support. You have to go through some online tutorials and then you're the
tech support. If you need help, you can get it through an online forum or
through a trouble ticket system (where you pay by the minute). When one of
your customers needs help, their trouble tickets go to you. If you pass
them along to the parent company, you are billed by the minute.
I use the
above account to host many of my own domains. I have numerous very simple
sites that are only a few pages. Some are only a one-page sales letter. I
save a bundle by paying only $2 per month to host these. When you're
paying only $2 per month for hosting you don't need to make a lot of sale
for a site to be profitable.
Another
necessity is basic Internet access. For that I use my local cable company
but I also have a backup dialup connection. That account, which offer
decent service cost me less than $10 per month. Because I transfer many 30
meg or larger files back and forth regularly, this account probably isn’t
robust enough to be my primary. However, my local cable company does
sometimes have outages for various reasons. That's when I use this dialup
account most. I also use it sometimes while I'm traveling. You can
checkout the company I use at: http://47928.yourdialupservice.com/ They
offer thousands of local access numbers in the U.S. and Canada.
I have not
located a comparable resource for outside the U.S. and Canada, but will
pass it along when I do.
Another way
to save big is to get your own merchant account. When you use Paypal or
Clickbank, your initial investment may be less. However you pay much
higher processing fees, and your less professional appearance DOES cost
you sales. Savvy customers who understand Clickbank and Paypal will
recognize that you're not processing enough volume to consider a merchant
account worthwhile. They may consider you an amateur that they don't want
to risk major purchases with.
I'm not
saying that you shouldn't use Paypal or Clickbank when you first start out
and you're not confident that your product will even sell. I AM saying
that "when you're ready to run with the big dogs, you need to look like
one of them." Top marketers that I know who are processing tens of
thousands, and even hundreds of thousands of dollars per month in credit
card transactions use: http://WarriorProcessing.com Take a look at the
site and you'll see why it's who we use.
As you get
your online business rolling, the other thing you'll need is traffic. When
you first get started, the fastest way to get it is from the
pay-per-clicks. I use Google AdWords to drive initial traffic to all of my
sites when I need that traffic fast. That allows me to quickly get enough
traffic to test and improve my conversion rate. None of the other
pay-per-clicks usually deliver the volume of traffic that I want quickly
enough.
After I
refine things using Google AdWords, I do set up accounts at some of the
other pay-per-clicks. I use Google AdWords at first because I place a very
high value on my time and I don't want to spend months just getting enough
traffic to refine the sales process on a single site.
Unless you
have lots of free time, I wouldn't waste time on any other traffic source
initially EXCEPT for the one I am using right here. Writing and submitting
articles to ezines and article directories has proven the single best
source of free traffic for me. It works so well that I've written over 300
articles on various aspect of Internet marketing. To prove that this
works, just enter my name at any search engine. You'll see millions of
returns and most of them are simply from my article writing activities.
The other
thing that will save you time is studying and practicing copywriting.
Minor improvement in your web copy can easily increase your conversion
rate by 100 times. Not learning copywriting is practicing false economy
for most of us. If only 1 out of every 200 visitors to your site buys and
just by changing a headline you can change that to 1 in 20, that shows
just how important copywriting is. There have been countless documented
cases of people getting improvements this dramatic from minor but
important improvement in their web copy.
To learn
copywriting, I went through and highly recommend Yanik Silver's Ultimate
At-Home Internet Copywriting Workshop. This will be your largest initial
expense, but it's a necessary one. Words sell, and if you're not willing
to learn to use words properly in your marketing, then you probably
shouldn't waste time setting up a website.
You can get
all of the details on this course at: http://www.ultimateonlinecopymanual.com
We've just
gone over a number of way that you can dramatically cut the expenses
associate with operating your online business. I'm willing to bet that
I've just told you things that NO ONE else has told you. They aren't all
trying to take advantage of you. However, they are hoping that out of
ignorance you'll spend more on the same items through them. Save that
money and plow it back into growing your business.
This article
is excerpted from Willie Crawford's Revised, Free 20-lesson Internet
Business Success Course. To sign up for the entire course today, simply
visit: http://WillieCrawford.com
