Great financial tips to ensure you make more dollar

More than $117 billion passed hands from Internet shoppers to Internet vendors in 2004, according to the statistical research firm comScore. Thats billion, with a B. Compared to the year before, the figure represents a whopping 24 percent increase in sales. Compared to the early 1990s, when the Web was a questionable commercial venture, todays $117 billion is proof-positive that the Web is the full-fledged money-making machine. It seems to be a big enough pie that any merchant with a Web site can cut out his heaping slice.

Not so fast. As any merchant whos tried to take a bite out of the Internet will tell you, turning a profit online is not as simple as throwing a few pages together. Professional Web sites cost big bucks for design, consultation, and upkeep. Either you have to hire a full-time editor or technician to manage your Web store, or you need to pay three-digit hourly rates to contract Web professionals. Then you have to face fees for Web hosting, broadband access, and IT maintenance.

Even after you expend all of this capital and launch your Web site, youre still not guaranteed anything. Your site will only be one among millions, if not billions. Yes, thats billions with a B again. The Internet, after all, is like a clear sky on a dark night. How can you expect a customer to pick your star out from among all of the others that shimmer for their attention?

On the Web youll quickly learn that attracting your clienteleand building your Internet-based businessis just as tough as it was when you first started your brick-and-mortar shop. It takes smart investing, creative marketing, a little luck, and a lot more know-how.

Whats great about the business side of the Web, however, is that your old-fashioned know-how translates quite well on the Web. A great example is the timeless merchant adage: Location, location, location. This saying holds true on the Web, too. You can place your stores site in a spot on the Web where no one will discover you, or you could position it on a busy corner on the Internet.

One such spot are online classified sites. These sites provide similar services as you would get from a newspaper classified. Sellers can place ads online that describe a particular product for sale. Buyers browse these ads and contact sellers when theyre interested. Online classifieds, though, are far more dynamic. They allow a merchant to display dozens, if not hundreds, of their goods with pictures and descriptions. And believe it or not, some online classified sites allow you to do this for free. Yes, thats free with an F.

The benefits dont stop there. As a merchant on a classified site, you can enjoy:

A store that never closes. Your goods are for sale 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The Internet never turns off.

A mall of online shoppers. Think of a classified site as a virtual shopping mall, with your grouping of ads under your own virtual storefront. By having a storefront, this allows you to have your own web page and listings, under the umbrella of the classified site.

A chain reaction of shopping. Real shoppers go to a mall to visit one store, but often they end up browsing through all of the stores in the mall. The same is true of virtual shoppers. Even when they visit a classified site looking for one particular thing, theyre likely to spill over to your storefront out of curiosity. At the very least, it leads to advertising for your store; at best, business.

An advantage over pure Web merchants. Your classified site will pit you against wily online vendors who only sell their wares on the Web. This is where your brick-and-mortar business comes in handy. Its proven that shoppers seem to trust online merchants that have a real address and a real store somewhere.

A solution to the intricacies of the Internet. Many classified sites can help with setting up your ads and with designing your storefront, providing you with instant IT IQ. For your buyers, the sites offer the security that Web shoppers demand to protect them from identify theft and fraud.

As mentioned before, many classified sites charge absolutely nothing for all of these benefits. The listings, the shopping traffic, the sense of business community, the advertisingyou receive all of these perks for free. Oh, and dont forget your piece of the $117 billion dollar pie.

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How To Get The Most Bang For Your Online Advertising Dollar

Internet advertising has become an effective way to market your business online. I did not realize this until I was having coffee with my good friend, Lisa in our favorite coffee shop. Since we both have online businesses and work from home our conversations tend to end up on the topic of doing business online.

I have been trying to look for ways to increase my sales, but I was not sure where to go or what to do so I asked Lisa about what she does to help increase her sales. Her business always seems to be doing so well, and she did do a little better than me in some of our business courses in college, so I do look up to her. She smirked, slowly stirring her coffee. I knew she already had something in mind for me to do and she was about to tell me, but not before funning with me a bit before she told me her secret.

She started to add some more cream to her latte, giving me that mother like squint while asking me what I was doing while we were in our business advertising, marketing and promotion courses. Well, I did learn a lot from my business courses, but so much has changed in so little time. While I was in college I was planning to open up a brick and mortar coffee shop, not selling specialty coffees online!

Lisa asked me what I had learned about advertising in our courses at college. I told her I remembered how important advertising was, but at the time I was focusing on a brick and mortar shop not an online business coffee store. She giggled a bit and put her hand out. She said that all I had to do was take what I learned from commercial advertising to Internet advertising. Both commercial advertising for a coffee shop and Internet advertising for my online shop had numerous similarities.

Lisa reminded me about making sure that my Internet advertisements reached my target customers those interested in coffee or those who would buy them as a gift. Those are my main customers, I thought to myself. She told me in order to reach them I would need to make sure that my Internet ads would reach those people such as on other websites related to coffee, newsletters for coffee lovers, etc.

Lisa said she had found several advertising campaigns that worked extremely well for her but she did have to do some work to find the most successful ones. I gave her a look and snidely asked, You had to do research to find successful advertising campaigns with all of the knowledge you have? She returned a bad look and smiled reminding me that the Internet consumers seem to be changing on a regular basis. You need to research several different ad campaigns to find the most successful ones for your online business. How do you find the ones that are best for you? I asked. She reminded me about this advertising class we had where our professor had us do an assignment on recording the effects of advertising campaigns to get rid of those that had little or no effect and keep the ones that were working. Ah, I remembered then. It is important to keep track of certain aspects of each different ad campaign (hits, costs, revenue, and ROI) to make sure we didnt waste money on those that didnt work and kept the ones that brought in more sales.

She smiled, touching my hand, exclaiming that I finally got it! She raised a finger toward my face and in a mother-like tone reminded me to test different ad campaigns and I would find the best Internet advertising for my business. I smiled, took notes and we enjoyed the rest of our coffee break.

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