Internet Marketing and Karma

Networking with other business owners, providing a benefit to users such as information or leads without necessarily benefitting ourselves. These are the types of activities that will truly win loyalty from people.

I think it's important to remember that our behavior outside of our website is also a part of our business identity. If we are just out spamming message boards with a copy/paste advertisement -- exactly how is that benefitting anyone?

Let's put our heads together and think of ways that we can achieve our networking and promotion goals in a way that not only gets us many more inbound links that we are after for search engine rankings then we ever dreamed possible, but also gains the trust and friendship of our potential customers and probably more importantly, our colleagues.

What are your thoughts and ideas? I'm interested to brainstorm on this with you.

The search engines do evaluate your website for different criteria and the amount and quality of websites linking to you is taken into account.

The best backlinks to acquire are ones that are related to your website. If you have a website about health products, you would want to acquire links from websites with similar, or complementary content.

Some ways to build your backlinks are as follows:

1. Create a Buzz.
Provide excellent content on your website that people will voluntarily want to link to.
2. Distribute free content.
Write informative or entertaining articles and submit them to webmasters to publish on their sites in exchange for them allowing you to place a link to your website in the bio at the bottom of the article.
3. Forum Signatures.
Participate actively on forums and include a link in your signature if the forum allows it.
4. Reciprocal Linking.
Exchange links with other webmasters.
5. Blog Commenting.
Read blogs in your niche and make comments on posts.
6. Submit online press releases. Distribute news about your businesses to PR Services such as PRWeb Direct, PRNewsWire and MarketWire.

Share additional ideas or ask questions on the forum!

Take three steps forward

It doesn't matter if you haven't started your home business yet, or if you already have a well established business. We all want to 'take it to the next level'.

How about today you think of three significant steps that you could take to get things moving?

For newbies it might be finding a website host, buying your domain name, getting a business card made... whatever it is that you see as the next step and you can chunk in a day.

For established biz owners, is there a phone call you've been putting off? Maybe you want to approach another business owner with a joint venture proposal? How long has it been since you updated your homepage, wrote your newsletter or blogged? What about backlinks? When was the last time you submitted your website to a directory?

These are significant baby steps that can take us on our way to success.

Join us in the forum and let us know what steps YOU have taken today!

Advertising in Forums

I've noticed a lot of women posting advertisements on forums to promote their businesses. While forums can be a good source of traffic and leads - they can also be a true networking opportunity.

When you are posting on forums you may want to consider the following to make the best use of the opportunity.

1. Read the forum rules and abide by them. Many forum owners give you specific places to place ads. Don't spam the conversation threads with blatant ads for your business. That's just bad etiquette.

2. Join conversations. If you really want people to trust you and your business opportunity... get to know them! You are going to find that people are much more likely to sign up under you if they get to know you.

3. Give some good information. We all see zillions of the same ads. What we don't see much of is posts on when someone joined a certain business opportunity. What are the challenges you've overcome? How much are you earning and what are your goals? Posts with more information are going to get a lot more attention.

Crafting is viable business!

We often focus on administrative and technical job opportunites. I want to remind you that I believe it is what you are passionate about doing that is going to make you money.

If you have a craft that you love to do, think about how you can make money with it.

One idea that got me thinking spurred from a gift that a client and some colleagues sent to me to congratulate us on the birth of our daughter last month. It was a diaper cake! I had never seen one before and thought it was such a clever idea. A three tiered 'cake' of diapers, with little baby items like powder, pacifiers and other goodies tucked in.

I thought this would make a really neat home business for some of our more crafty Moms! Here's a good resource for you: MakeaDiaperCake.biz.

And speaking of Moms... check out how my very own Mom is making money from her love of knitting. She recently launched Knitting Haven and has experienced almost immediate success! If you're a knitter, you'll love the warm community she has created at 'The Parlor'. But even if you don't knit, check it out. It's a perfect example of taking what you love to do and making it your business.