Friday, March 9, 2007

What are the Best Business and Investment Opportunities?

There are an almost limitless number of business opportunities available today. They include everything from sales, real estate, small business, home business, marketing, franchising, advertising, business services, internet business, etc. But many of them require a large investment. Many internet businesses only require an initial small investment, but many are not profitable. A lot of people have spent a large amount of time and money on businesses that failed. Some of the best business opportunities do not take a lot of time or money. Most of these are internet businesses. One of the best ways to make money on the internet is by becoming an affiliate with another internet business. ClickBank is one of these. With ClickBank you promote a product as an affiliate with an internet marketer. You will get a percentage for every referred customer sale.

There are many investment opportunities available: mutual funds, stocks, bonds, Treasury securities, savings bonds, variable annuities, commodities, commodity futures, options, Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), and a lot more. But, you need to trust the company that is making these investments on your behalf or you may lose money. Also, you need a substantial amount of money to produce a substantial profit. If you have money to invest, I would recommend either mutual funds or real estate.

To invest in mutual funds, find a reputable broker. I do not recommend using online brokers unless you have a great deal of knowledge and experience investing in stocks and mutual funds. Determine what kind of investor you are. Do you fit in the conservative, moderate, or aggressive category. A word to the wise though. Watch your funds to make sure they are performing well. Brokers will not call you if your funds are doing poorly.

To invest in real estate, find a reputable real estate agent. Buying houses to rent is an excellent way to boast your income. Make sure your down payment is enough so that you receive a positive cash flow from your rent after you subtract your mortgage payment, maintenance expenses, etc.

So, in summary, the most profitable business opportunity is becoming an affiliate with an internet marketer and the most profitable investments are in mutual funds and buying and renting real estate.

Paul Sealey lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He works at home online and recommends you visit his website: http://www.phytosaur.com At the bottom of the page, click on Sitemap. This will take you to a list of Business Indexes. Each business index contains a large number of business websites that are worth checking out.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

A Classified Way To Drive Business To Your Web Site

There are more than 105 million of them in the United States. Worldwide, there could be at least 250 million of them. Them, according to statistics from the Nielsen/Net Ratings service, is the number of active Web surfers. 250 million in the whole world? The figure is more than the populations of Canada, Australia, Great Britain, and a few non-English speaking countries combined. That’s a lot of them!

With so many active surfers around, you would think Webmasters and site owners have an easy time attracting them. Actually, they face an uphill battle to bring visitors and, more importantly, consumers to their Web sites. And a Web site without traffic is like a store built in the middle of the desert. You could have the greatest products and most attractive Web design around, but they’re worthless if no one visits them.

There is one way, however, to turn your Web site into an oasis of business, a way to drive as much traffic to your site as your server can handle: a classified ad.

More on that later. First, all Web builders and site owners should know the basic and time-tested ways to attract traffic to their Web site. The key to all of these methods is to attract the right Web surfers. You want what experts call “targeted visitors,” or people who are actually interested in what you’re selling. To guarantee that this happens, you should follow this checklist of Web traffic golden rules:

Step 1: Optimize your Web pages. Webmasters in the know take the time to set their meta tags. These tags, or codes, are hidden keywords in the Web page that tell search engines like Google and Yahoo exactly what your site is all about. A meta tag, for instance, could be “designer handbags,” “sporting equipment,” or whatever else you happen to be selling. These keywords tell the search engine to direct all handbag or sports shoppers to your site.

Step 2: List your site with every search engine out there. For this step, you simply need to surf over to Google, AltaVista, Yahoo, MSN, and other search engines. Click onto their customer service page, where they allow Web builders and site owners to manually submit their site addresses.

Step 3. Spice up your site with interactive features. With articles, newsletters, offers, promotions, and discounts, you give your targeted visitors a reason to stay at your site once they find it. More importantly, you give them reasons to come back and tell their friends about the site. Word of mouth is one of the best, and cheapest, forms of advertising on the planet.

Step 4. Exchange banner ads with friends and with other companies that you do business with. Banner ads are those eye-catching designs at the top and bottom of Web pages. They’re like the billboards of the Internet superhighway. But with these online billboards, a simple click transports the Web surfer directly to your Web site.

Step 5. Exchange Web links with friends and business associates. This, Webmasters and site owners, could be the most important way to drive Web traffic to your site. All of the major search engines rank sites by measuring how many links come to and leave from your Web site.

So links are a way to measure how worthwhile and how legitimate your site is. The better this measurement, the better chance your site will have to show up well in Web surfers’ searches. In other words, these links could be the difference between your site being listed on page 20 of a Google search results, or on page 1.

Building better Web links and search engine results—that’s where classified sites come into play. Some of the most savvy classified sites on the market now offer Web links in their ads. These links lead right to your business’ home page.

Not only are these links convenient one-click ways for more customers to reach your site. They also boost your search engine rankings.

Of course, for business owners, classified sites have so many other benefits, too.

• Unparalleled exposure. Classified sites are like online malls. Not only will you get exposure from shoppers coming specifically to find your goods. You get “spill over” attention from shoppers who came for another item but then start browsing through all of the other ads in the classified “mall.”
• A new arsenal of Web sites. Having online classified ads is like setting up multiple new Web sites across the Internet. Unlike your own original site, these classified ads come with low-cost IT support, security, and advertising.
• Incredible growth opportunities. Businesses and individuals selling on online classified sites pull in more than $1.95 billion a year, according to the statistics firm Kelsey Group. That figure does not even include money from eBay.
• Money for nothing. As valuable as classified sites are, many of the best ones charge very little or absolutely nothing to set up your ads.

Add up all of these numbers—250 million active Web surfers in the world, $1.95 billion in classified sales, and $0 cost—and your Web business is sure to come out in the positive.


About the Author:

Donald Lee is the public relations manager for Buysellcommunity.com. Buysellcommunity provides free classified listing services for individuals and businesses to market their products and services online. For global and localized classifieds, please visit http://www.buysellcommunity.com Free Buy & Sell Classifieds