Watch My Online Business Come To Life!

Wow!  It really seems like a long time since my last post, and in fact, it is for me.  I’ve been in hospital and unable to work, but thankfully, that’s all over with now and I’m back to fighting fitness!  The beauty of my home business is that all the time I wasn’t working, things were still ticking over and earning me a living! That was one of the main reasons I went down this route in the first place, so it gave me untold satisfaction to see the results when I got out of hospital.

I did have a lot of time to think, and as you might imagine, much of that was about how to move my business forward.  I’ve had some cracking ideas - among those, I’m moving into CPA offers, experimenting with new methods for driving organic search traffic to my product sites, and beginning a complete makeover of this site - in the next couple of days for example, I’m going to begin building a comprehensive resources area for my visitors, which will cover a whole range of topics relating to online business.

All of these changes will of course be recorded here for prosperity, so you can all see how I go about it - I promise to take the time and record all the nitty-gritty detail, so hopefully there should be some really good useful stuff here for you guys.

Head down - next few days are going to be busy!

If you are in business online, you will undoubtedly need to conduct keyword research from time to time, whether its for a Pay-Per-Click campaign, article writing, search engine optimisation for your website, or whatever.  Finding out what keywords people are serching for is critical, as no matter how good your campaign, sales copy or article is, it won’t be seen by anyone if you don’t target the correct keywords.

One of the best methods I’ve found is to try to see what your competition is doing!  Firstly, if there is a lot of competition, then there must be profit in those keywords.  Also it’s likely that those guys have spent a lot of time and effort on research, which is time and effort you save.

Problem with this is how to find out what they are doing!

In the past, having first picked a market (niche), I do some keyword research using Google’s Keyword Tool, or one of the others I’ve mentioned in my previous posts. Then I’ll plug each keyword into the search engines, having a look at the advertisements in turn. If there are a large number of advertisers who are selling a specific product, then that must be a good keyword.

Although invaluable information, this is really time consuming, so when I came across this tool I couldn’t believe my luck.

The tool is called PPC Web Spy.  It short-circuits this whole process, by allowing you to see what keywords any advertiser is bidding on.  Just put in any keyword or phrase related to your market, then see a whole list of profitable keywords that your competitors have spent time and money researching. 

Firstly, its completely free, and free is my favorite price ;o)

Secondly, it comes as a Firefox plugin, meaning there is no software to install, and its much quicker and simpler to use.

Using the tool is simplicity in itself - just put any keyword into Google, and the results come back as normal, however, beneath each advertisement is a button that returns the exact keywords that particular advertiser is bidding on, as well as number of clicks per day and the costs!  Amazingly clever stuff - I’ve no idea how it works, but this will save literally days of research, so I’m not complaining!

Check it out here:

http://tinyurl.com/77nnrh

Following on from my last post on making positive changes for the new year, I have a suggestion for you all -Create a new habit of continuous improvement.  That may sound a bit ‘new age’ to some, but its just about making simple changes in your daily routine that help you move your online business forward.

Its estimated at as much as 95% of what we do is habit - this is a mechanism to help us cope with all the complex tasks we have to perform every day.  Imagine if you had to consciously think about how to make a coffee or drive a car.  You’d never have time to think about anything beyond basic activities. Habit allows us to get through daily life while still being able to do the more complex tasks that define us - whether that’s planning for the future, taking up a new hobby or imagining how the bedroom might look with a new coat of paint!

By creating new habits then, we become more efficient - automatically getting more done without any more effort. Read the rest of this entry »

Ok, ok.  I know that heading is a bit of a cliche, but that doesn’t stop it being true for many people.  I’ve just been away seeing family for Christmas and New Year, and, like many I’m sure, have piled on a few pounds and done practically nothing else but laze around for the last few weeks.  It was great!

But like everyone else, I’m planning to make some changes for 2009.

Apart from putting more into my online business, I also want to lose some weight and get to the gym more.  So why is this relevant to an online business blog I hear you ask?

Well, its simple.  If you are looking for ideas for your online business, its a good idea to stick with what’s topical.  The start of a new year brings millions of people onto the net looking for solutions for thier problems or new year resolutions.  You can probably come up with a far more extensive list yourself, but here’s a few to start the ideas flowing…

• Weight loss ;o)
• Help with giving up smoking
• Exercise plans
• Motivation
• Learning a new language
• Switching credit cards to find a better deal (after all the excess Christmas spending!)

I can see from my stats that people are reading this blog and I thank you all for coming along to see what I’ve got to say!  It really makes all the effort worthwhile.  Thank you!

Help me make it better sharing your thoughts.  I’d love to hear any and all comments - tell me what you like, what you don’t like so much, anything you’d like me to cover, or even just to say hi!  

Even better, if you can let others know about my blog using the bookmarking links below, or email a link to you friends I would be eternally grateful :o)

Thanks again!

Ronan