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Be sure to see the Barnes Internet Marketer’s Resource Guide for tools that will help you with SEO.

SEO is comprised of thousands of small details that combine to help provide you with a solid ranking in the search engines.  When you first start out, it can be extremely difficult to determine what are short term tricks compared to the solid strategies that will provide you with lasting results.  The main goal of a search engine is to deliver relevance.  For without relevance, the search engine won’t be around long.  If the results a search engine delivers is not relevant to what the customer wants, they won’t be back again.

For example, if you are getting married and are on a tight budget, you may do a search for budget wedding tips.  If you get results back that show sites for lavish destination weddings, you aren’t going to be happy.  The search engine wants to deliver the closest sites possible to budget wedding tips because it’s good for their business to keep their customers happy.

When it comes to SEO, you’ve got to be on the lookout for hucksters.

There are plenty of folks running SEO services companies that will offer you the “opportunity” to move up in the search engine rankings – sometimes they will even “guarantee” a top spot.  If someone guarantees this to you by simply doing some SEO work, don’t fall for it.  SEO tactics generally take time to have an impact on rankings.  Now, there are ways to move your site up in the search engines in a very rapid fashion.  Unfortunately, those methods are frowned upon by the search engines, so those efforts will deliver very short term results.  On top of that, you run the risk of being delisted in a search engine such as Google.

Those that participate in trickery to gain you search engine positions are generally using tactics that are known as “black hat SEO”.  These tactics serve no purpose other than to trick the search engines.  They ALWAYS fail.  Some work longer than others, but in the end, you are getting very short term results that could damage your long term standings.  Tricks by hucksters involved in questionable SEO tactics my use the following:

• Adding thousands of links on hundreds of websites
• Duplicating pages on your site
• Buying or stealing content from other webisites to use on yours
• Connecting your site to linking networks where thousands of sites exchange links

Be sure that if you hire an SEO company that you ask specifics.  Exactly what steps are they going to be taking to improve your rankings?  If they tell you it’s a “secret”, find yourself another SEO company to help you.

Now don’t misunderstand.  There are many, many hardworking SEO professionals that CAN help you with your on site SEO efforts that over time WILL help you increase your search engine ranking.  Some “White Hat SEO” efforts will work faster than others, but know that generally speaking, it’s going to take time for above board efforts to show solid results.

As discussed above, search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo! want to provide the most relevant results possible.  Google in particular has been very active in updating their search algorytyms on a regular basis to week out those who have come up with new ways to try and fool their search engine.  Anytime these changes take place, internet marketing forums are abuzz with unhappy folks who have used questionable tactics to get their sites to the top of the search engines.  Had they stayed away from trickery when it came to their SEO efforts, they’d have a site that was continuing to rise in the search engines instead of falling to the bottom of the listings or being removed all together.

When running a business online, having a good understanding of legitimate SEO tactics is not only a must, but is as just important as knowing what’s not legit.

balance between an area which is of interest to a wide audience but is also an area which is not already saturated on the Internet. As I discussed earlier, this is because a niche which is already saturated on the Internet may not be profitable because there is already so much competition for the interest and business of the target audience’s attention. Those marketing in these areas would have to be truly innovative and far superior to the competitors already on the market to secure a share of the market.

Conversely, a niche which is not already saturated has room for savvy

entrepreneurs to begin marketing to their target audience. In this scenario the audience is hungry for more marketing in this area and smart investors realize what it takes to feed this appetite. These potential clients are looking for quality products or services and investors who know how to make finding their products or services on the Internet a simple process.

While some will tell you to sell something only that you know about, this really isn’t necessary if you are acting as an affiliate for a particular product. With all the tools that are available today, you can easily sell something as an affiliate you have no prior knowledge about. However, if you have knowledge of a particular niche and are passionate about it, your success will likely come much easier – regardless of the business model you choose. Think about this for a moment. Without a doubt, if you are writing sales copy, an article or assembling a how to guide, your passion for the subject will ring out loud and clear in your materials. The quality of your materials will be much higher. In a course that I sold back in 2005, my customers knew full well EXACTLY how passionate I was about what I was teaching. It was a critical reason I was so successful with it.

If you use audio and or videos on your sale site or on your actual product site, potential customers will know full well if you aren’t passionate about what you are selling. If you aren’t passionate about what you are selling, why should the customer buy from you? However, when a potential customer sees your passion, they are much more likely to reward you by purchasing your product. Personality and passion do indeed matter! Do what you love and the money will follow and while you may work many hours running your business, it won’t seem like work at all! When I ran my course back in 2005, I routinely worked 18 hours a day and loved every minute of it!

This especially applies to niche marketing. Working in niche markets applies the psychology of human nature on both the seller and buyer side. You’re harnessing passion. Anyone of the street can go along with the mainstream and do what anybody else does, because it’s easy and it’s what everybody else is doing. Success will be hard to find if you follow that path. But people occupying a niche experience something a little more special. To the buyer, the seller becomes more than a face-less entity behind a cash register; the seller becomes someone they can count on to provide them with the information and products they need. In many cases, the customer ends up looking at the seller as a friend.

Before we get started going through the various niche thought starter resources, I want to discuss some things you’ll want to be thinking about as you go through them. When I go through this process, I like to think about what problem is out there that I can solve? It’s how I came up with the idea on this course. Sure, there are ebooks on the market that cover various components of what I’m doing here. There are also video collections that do the same thing. But what I found in my research was that there were very few courses that do what I’m doing with my course – taking someone by the hand from the very beginning of getting started online. So – keep the question “what problem is out there that I can solve”? in mind when going through this exercise.

Here are some other ideas:

1. Keep in mind that isn’t not what you sell, but how you sell it. As I said earlier, you can sell ANYTHING online.

2. Authenticity is critical. Anyone can copy someone else’s site. That’s not going to get you anywhere. You’ve got to come up with your own angle because if you don’t, you’ll be looked upon as a phony.

3. To help in the process of deciding what kind of niches you’d like to investigate further, consider these things:

a. Your background and beliefs

b. Your hobbies

c. Favorite TV Shows / Music that you listen to

d. Remember – no matter how “out there” your interests may be, we live in the age of the internet! There may very well be many others that share what you believe are interests that are “out there”.

e. What do you spend money on?

f. What’s going on in the news now that you could turn into a niche?

g. Nostalgia sells!

If you have a hard time coming up with niches you think you’d be interested in, keep this in mind – Niches are EVERYWHERE – many times in places you’d never think to look. It’s why they are called Niches!

As you go through the various resources, keep these points in mind so that you’ll already be thinking about marketing angles as well as how you could make what you find better than the competition. I find this process to be very enjoyable. You’ll be amazed at how your creativity will kick into high gear as you go through these resources. Be sure to write down not only your ideas for niches, but any marketing / twists on what you see. If you don’t write these things down, you’ll forget them and you may lose out on what could turn out to be a very profitable idea! At the end of this process, you want to have as many niche ideas as possible – I generally have around 100. Don’t worry if you don’t have that many, but the more that you have the better. You’ll end up whittling the list down to 5 or 6 when we go through the steps in the next tutorial.

Niche Market Research Ideas

1. The first place I recommend that you look at is DMOZ.org

DMOZ.org is the largest directory on the internet and it currently contains over 590,000 different topics. That’s over ½ million possibilities! Be sure to drill down through several sub categories to see if there is anything that interests you. Be sure to write down all that do.

2. eBay

There are three resources at eBay that you will want to take a look at. All three resources here are excellent because they give you a snap shot of what is popular at the time you visit them.

The first is the Hot Categories Report

This particular resource will provide you with the hottest sellers from the previous month. The nice thing about this report is that it doesn’t just provide you with the master category that is hot, it actually drills down to the lowest sub category that is hot.

The second resource at eBay is eBay Pulse

eBay describes this resource as “a daily snapshot of current trends, hot picks and cool stuff on eBay. It includes several dynamically created lists showing popular searches, store, products and more. These lists are a great way for you to see what is hot in the eBay Marketplace.

As I’m writing this – and has been the case for quite some time – most of the top searches are related to electronics, games and computer related items. To be honest, it will be very difficult for the newbie to be successful selling some of these items due to the significant amount of competition. But that’s not all this resource can do for you. Simply select the various categories to see the top items from within the categories that you have an interest in.

The third resource at eBay is the listings page.

The listing page allows you to view popular niches by taking a look at the categories along with their sub categories. Take a look at the numbers next to each sub category – these show the number of listings that are currently running. The higher the number, the more popular that particular niche is on eBay. You’ll notice that you can even click on the sub categories to drill down even further so that you can really focus in on a tight niche.

3. Lycos Top 50

This is a quick and easy source for niche ideas. The top 50 movers & shakers for the current week are shown here, along with their increase or decrease in popularity in the past week. It’s important to realize that many of the listings here are related to what’s been in the news lately.

4. Yahoo Buzz

This site provides you with the top 20 searches for any number of different topics. Clicking on the links in any of these highlighted areas will provide you with a HUGE BEVY of niche ideas! Be sure to scroll down the page to see additional topics that have been added recently. This is an excellent resource.

5. Search Online Groups

Google Groups

MSN Groups

Yahoo Groups

Browsing groups are a GREAT way to find some terrific ideas for a niche to investigate further. By taking a look at what is being discussed, you’ll know what is hot at the time you are looking. Groups give you great look into just what is driving discussions, thereby providing you with even more niche ideas to research.

Another great things about groups is that once you register, you’ll then be able to post in the various groups that interest you or that end up in the niches you decide to do business in. In posting in these particular groups, you’ll be able to add a signature line that includes a link back to your site.

6. Google Hot Trends

This site provides the top searches on Google throughout the day. You have the ability to change the date to whatever date you’d like to. As you’ll see by taking a look at this site, most of the searches have to do with current events or other topics related to the time of year you happen to visit this site. While you’ll likely not want to get into a niche that is based on a current event, this list could spark some ideas for you.

7. Alexa 500

Once you click over to this site, you’ll be able to view the top sites as ranked by Alexa, sorted by country. Click on just one of these sites and you’ll have all the niche ideas that you could ever need!

8. Magazines & Newspapers

What to magazines and newspapers cover? Current news, sports, technology, trends and any other topic there is enough interest in! Magazines and Newspapers are excellent ways to come up with niche ideas to research. All you’ll need to do is either visit your local Barnes & Noble or newsstand, or simply visit the web site above. Many magazines have limited content available for viewing. Not only will this content give you some great ideas, the covers along will as well! When using this resource, be sure to make a note of any headlines that may pertain to niches that you have an interest in. Magazines and Newspapers have some of the best copyrighters / headline writers out there. You may be able to adapt the headlines that catch your eye when developing your sales page.

9. Clickbank Marketplace

Clickbank

Clickbank is the number one retailer for digitally delivered products. These products include e-books to software. This is a great site to search for ideas – even if you aren’t interested in selling something digital. It can spark ideas that lead to other niches you may find an interest in. I’ve never been a big fan of the searching capabilities of Clickbank when looking for something to promote from Clickbank, but as a tool to search for niche ideas, it’s a great place to visit. (I discuss a site that is dedicated to finding hot Clickbank products to promote in the Affiliate tutorial.) To search for niche ideas in Clickbank, simply enter in a keyword for a topic you may be interested in. Be sure to choose a broad enough keyword so that you’ll be sure to get some products returned. Once you do that, a list of products will be returned to you based on that keyword. You have ability to choose how you’d like the resulting products to be sorted. For example, if you choose to have the results sorted by “gravity”, you’ll see the item displayed by the success rate affiliates are selling the products. You can also browse by category and subcategory as well. Remember, you aren’t looking to select a product to sell at this point – the point of this exercise is to come up with niche ideas that may be of interest to you.

10. Top Selling eBooks

ebooks.com

This site will provide you with all of the hottest selling ebooks at the time you are visiting this site. This is a great resource that will provide you with a TON of ideas! One way you could use this information to your benefit is you could write a report on the topic of one of these ebooks. This tactic will work wonders for you in getting your name out there. One thing you will want to keep in mind – the higher the popularity of a particular ebook, the more actively it will be promoted. While this can be a good thing in terms of visibility, the market could be saturated. For now, simply write down ideas for niches you get from this site. I’ll go into how to get a general idea of supply and demand in the Niche research tutorial.

11. Niche A Day

Niche a Day

Niche A Day is a fantastic service that will provide you with an idea for a Niche every day via email. Another neat feature of this service is that the high PPC bid is included as well. That figure will give you a rough idea of how popular / crowded the particular niche is. In addition to this Niche idea that they send to you, they will also send you an Excel Spreadsheet with 1,000 keywords in it. With that list, you can simply cruise through it to locate a sub niche that you may be interested in. The service is free, so this is a no brainer.

Of course the downside to this service is that they likely send that email out to thousands of people each day. But the question is – how many people actually put a site together based on every niche they send out? In addition to the niche being sent each day, they will also send you their newsletter called Niche Marketing Basics. An outstanding service to help you generate some ideas relative to choosing a niche you’d like to jump into.

12. 43 Things

43 Things

43 Things is a very interesting site. I’d never seen anything like this before I stumbled upon it. People visit this site and enter their goals or dreams. As they do this, the site puts these words into a list that runs the entire page. The more often a goal or dream is entered, the larger the font is. The list isn’t in any particular order, so don’t feel that the higher the word on the list, the better niche it would make. You can continue to refresh the page for a new list. If you do this repeatedly, you’ll soon find that you have seen all of the words for that given time.

Write down as many of the words that interest you so that you can do some research on them in the next tutorial.

13. Trend Watching

Trend Watching

This is a service that provides a free monthly briefing on current and projected trends via their trend spotters network. There are numerous unique niche possibilities discussed on this site. If you are interested in an in depth report of projected trends in 2009, you can purchase the report directly from them on their site. For this exercise, the free monthly briefing will suffice.

14. Squidoo

Squidoo

Here’s another interesting resource to check out. Squidoo is a website hosting hundreds of thousands of “lenses”. Each lens is one person’s look at something online. Most of those with these lenses are regular folks and are not internet marketers. The reason I’ve included this site in this section is because you can see what is important to people and how they are promoting it. You can find a wide range of niche ideas to investigate on this site. By browsing the top ranked lenses linked to above, you’ll be able to see what is in high demand at the time you are doing the search.

15. Blogs

With all the blogs out there, it only makes sense to take a look through the two major blog directories:

Technorati

Google Blog Search

You’ll be able to come up with a huge number of niches to add to your list by going through these two directories. What better way to see what is popular with people at any given time than going through the most popular blogs being written?

The next phase

Now that you have gone through these 15 resources, you likely have a large number of possible niches. The next step in this process is to research the niches you have written down. In the next tutorial, we’re going to look at:

1. How much competition (supply) there is for the particular niche you are looking at and how big the competitors are. For example, if you decided you wanted to sell a wide range of DVR’s, you’d likely have a problem because this is a very saturated niche and it has a TON of high profile players in the market.

2. Is there a market (demand) for your product?

3. Is there any money in the market you are interested in? For example, I’ve sold vintage matchbook covers in the past. The problem with that niche was that there were very limited numbers of people willing to pay a decent price for the very rare matchcovers. Once you sold a very rare piece, the amount of money you could command for a duplicate was significantly reduced.

4. Is the market growing or contracting?

If you are looking for no BS, quality blogging resources, be sure to check out the Barnes Internet Marketer’s Resource Guide.

I can hear you saying blogging sounds great, but keep the following in mind:

• Few blogs succeed in the first six months of their existence.  Blogging isn’t a situation where you make a few posts and see an immediate result.  As a general rule, give yourself six months to a full year to expect significant results.  However, there are tools that can help you cut this time down significantly, such as the Clickbump SEO! plugin.
• Without any tools such as the Clickbump SEO plugin, it’ll feel like you’re speaking to an empty stadium sized room for the first six months.
• Blogging generates appreciable and direct income for only a  handful of blog owners.  This is because most don’t have a clue about important issues such as Search Engine Optimization or how to build traffic to them.  Due to this, most blogs end up being an indirect benefit to their owner’s business.

In my opinion, every business owner should be blogging.  Yes, it will require a commitment, but if you  make the commitment, blogging can generate healthy returns.  The key to blogging success, as with other areas of your business, is to have goals.  To make your blogging goals realistic, I recommend setting them up in a six month cycle.  This way, there will be time to get the work done and will give you something to shoot for.   If you set up your initial blogging goals with a one month cycle, you could end up not seeing the results you are looking for, become discouraged and quit blogging.  Give yourself a chance, make your blogging goals realistic and achievable.

For example, this may be a good starting place for your blogging goals:

• Answer the top 50 questions your customers ask you.
• Write at least two posts a week  (Google loves sites that are frequently updated)
• Send at least 25 potential clients a link to your blog
• Send all of your current clients a link to your blog
• Check your blog daily and answer any questions that need answering
• Generate at least five clients from your blogging activities
• Sign up at least 500 subscribers to your blog or RSS feed
• Have 75% of your traffic coming from search engines

These goals are very realistic as well as attainable.  Some examples of poor blogger goals:

• Earn a five figure income from my blogging activities
• Show a number 1 search engine ranking for a very competitive phrase

Both of these goals may very well be attainable, but the first one won’t likely happen in 6 months. But even if you earned $15,000 from your blogging activities, it may not necessarily help you if you’ve spent $20,000 getting that $15k.  Ranking number one for a very competitive phrase could very well help you, but you’ll need to do plenty of research on this first to determine this.

For more information on setting your blogging goals, please see my Setting Goals post.

In addition to giving your business a nice boost in income over time, blogging can be a lot of fun.

Be sure to focus on posting on topics / areas of your business that you enjoy the most.  This way, you’ll find that writing those two posts a week is something you’ll look forward to and not dread.  Remember, just as with anything else in life, you’re going to get out of it what you put into it.  Blogging is no different.

Be sure to watch for my other articles on Social Media here at BIMRG.com

The Seven Categories Of Social Media

All seven of these social media categories are important for you to explore because they are all interconnected in some fashion.  A YouTube account holder will likely also have a Facebook or Twitter account.  If someone forwards a funny YouTube video to someone’s Facebook account, that person can then watch it on YouTube.  If they like it, they may tell their Facebook friends and send a Tweet out about it.

Social media has the potential to send out your message far and fast!

Now that you know the seven categories of social media, you will also need to know what sites are the hot spots, along with the site’s specialties are so that you can successfully use social media to spread the word about your products and services online.

One thing that you do not want to do when it comes to social media marketing is to jump on to a social media network such as Facebook and make friends with hundreds of thousands of people with the intent of sending them coupons or other offers.  Do this and you’ll likely be banned from the network.  Spam has no place in any kind of marketing you do online for two reasons.  First, people don’t like the intrusion.  Second, most people are programmed to ignore and delete spam as quick as they get it.  Marketing on a social media site is much like going to a party.  Take the time to introduce yourself.  Chat a bit.  Don’t make a sales pitch until someone asks about a product or service you provide.  Become part of the community before you start selling.  Sure, it’ll take a bit longer to see results, but you’ll find that you will have far more success with your social media marketing in the long run.

So, you may be asking yourself, just how to I anticipate what my customers are going to be demanding from me several months from now. It’s not as hard as it may seem, as long as you take the time to follow these five tips:

1. Look at your sales data

Keep an eye on the purchases your customers are making. Pat attention to what groups of customers are buying what items. What’s happening with your average order size?

2. Listen to see what questions your customers are asking

Regardless of what method your customers use to communicate with you – phone, email, a form on your web site – pay attention to what they are asking for. If customers start to ask for similar products, you’d better investigate further.

3. Keep an eye on your competition

See what other sites are doing. What new products are they bringing in? What are they putting on sale, what are they increasing the prices? All of these things will give you an idea of what’s happening in the market.

4. Keep an eye on web sites that discuss the product lines that you carry

It’s a good idea to watch these sites for indications of new products that in the pipeline, or for products they are touting as the next big thing. In addition to web sites, read magazines that focus on your market, read newspapers and watch TV shows that focus on your market. These are all great ways to keep on top of what people are talking about and what they may be predicting is going to take place in your market.

5. Trade Shows

Trade shows are a great way to see what’s coming in terms of the products you carry. These shows will give you an idea of what your customers are going to be looking for next. Manufacturers spend millions of dollars to gauge interest in new products. Trade shows give you a glimpse into what they think are going to be the movers and shakers in coming months. Also – be sure to sign up for newsletters offered by your suppliers and manufacturers at these shows. Getting their catalogs and getting on their mailing lists are also good ideas.

Keep on top of these 5 areas, and you’ll go a long way to being able to “read your customers minds” and have the products they are looking for, when they want them. If you aren’t on top of what they want, they will leave and find a competitor that is.

You’ve got a number of choices when it comes to choosing a WordPress theme. There are many available that do a pretty good job when it comes to built in SEO features. I’ve used a number of them, but I came across the Clickbump Engine back in the spring of 2010 that is second to none! I started out using it on Adsense micro niche sites, but have since switched to it for all of my CJ and Amazon sites as well. The results have been nothing short of amazing.

The developer – Scott Blanchard – is an Internet Marketer that developed this for Internet Marketers! Not only his Scott a top flight IMer, he’s certainly got some fantastic developer skills as well. What he’s done with his Clickbump Engine over the past 18 months has been remarkable. Let me explain…

This “engine” doubles as a very powerful theme as well. It’s all done via an Innovative and New kind of WordPress Template that requires ZERO plugins to operate. That’s right – NO plugins. Now for some, that may seem a bit far fetched. Understood, because that’s what I thought at first as well.

The Clickbump Engine comes loaded with plenty of high quality templates!

The Clickbump Engine, come standard with plenty of templates – 12 to be exact – so you never have to worry about having a cookie cutter site that thousands of other people are running. I’ve used all of the templates out of the box, but Scott provides you with CSS editing instructions, so the sky really is the limit with all of the templates. All of the templates feature Adsense blocks and affiliate product shots above the content that can be turned on/off at will (ads are not shown in screenshots for simplicity).

But make no mistake, there is no tweaking of the WordPress code to make these work. Can you? Sure, but you certainly don’t have to do ANY tweaking if you don’t want to. In fact, you don’t need to know anything about php or html. There are even additional templates that he makes available for less than $20 as well.

With the availability of dozens of cutting edge, fast loading, seo optimized designs from the world’s top designers, ClickBump Engine is the only theme system you’ll ever need. Every template is built with 100% hand crafted, fast loading CSS. You can integrate new templates right into your installation at the click of a button. There are dozens of premium templates available now and more coming each month.

With this one theme, Scott has really done a fantastic job in coming up with a unique and powerful infrastructure that allows for the installation of an unlimited number of “templates” or designs into the core engine. He’s adding new templates all the time, so you’ll never be limited to the 12 that come with the Clickbump Engine.

Oh, and customer service? It’s second to none! I’ve been working on my sites at midnight before and have had a question or two. Dropped him an email and on more than one occasion, he’s gotten back to me within 4-5 minutes! Now, I can’t guarantee that kind of service all the time, but I can tell you that I’ve always received a very prompt, detailed and courteous response anytime I’ve contacted him with a question.

If you are doing business in the affiliate marketing arena, you owe it to yourself to check the Clickbump Engine out!

Before you can fix a potential problem, it’s important to know why people are leaving your shopping process near the end. Here are the top five reasons, along with ways you can help solve these issues.

1. Customers are turned of by the high cost of shipping & handling

This is the number one reason people bail out. While you may not think this has anything to do with your shopping cart, it certainly can. You need to make sure that your shopping cart is set up so that it combines the shipping cost when shipping multiple items. If a customer orders 6 items for you, but your cart adds a single item shipping charge for each item, it’s understandable that most will leave, isn’t it?

2. Customers can’t find all the information they need to complete the purchase, or the functionality isn’t there

Be sure to provide a help link from all pages within your shopping cart. Include a FAQ link as well. Do you think your customers are going to spend 20 minutes trying to figure out how to update their cart, or how to add an item? Nope, they are going to go elsewhere. If you can do it, consider offering an 800 help line for customers to call during the ordering process. Or, perhaps a live chat function. There are many quality services available today such as RealChat, ProvideSupport, and ParaChat. It all comes down to making the process as easy as possible for your customers. Having a way for them to obtain assistance throughout the process only makes good sense.

3. Customers are uncomfortable about having to register

Resist the temptation of requiring customers to provide upfront information prior to them making a purchase. If your customer can’t easily add their items to the shopping cart and give their information later, this will inevitably chase people away. Most don’t want you having their information until they know the order will be going through. Let people shop, then require the information only as they are finalizing their purchases.

4. Customers are not sure how to add items and finalize their purchase

Many customers will make a number of decisions during the buying process. They need the flexibility to be able to add, delete and update their orders, without causing the entire order to be wiped out. If your cart is set up in a way that leads to a customer having to re-enter all of the items they want if they delete or add an item, they are going to bail out. Make sure you make the entire process as seamless as possible. Allow changes and provide an easy way for your customer to finalize their order and check out.

5. Customers are afraid to finalize their order

Be sure that you are in compliance with all laws pertaining to data security. You must ensure that any page where you accept credit card numbers or other personal data is secure with SSL type technology. Customers should be reassured that their data is safe and they should be able to see a small lock in their browser bar. All URLS in your shopping cart should start with https:// and not http://. Go out of your way to have a link to a page that outlines what you do to ensure your customers data is safe. Provide a link to your privacy policy as well. When you reassure your customers from the get go, they are much more likely to buy from you.

Chris Baggott

Here at BIMRG, I aim to provide both the small and large business alike the internet marketing tools needed to succeed. Chris is right – these days anyone can complete. I aim to help level the playing field by providing the online marketing tips, tricks and resources you need to succeed in today’s online marketplace.

I do this in two ways.

First, I have this site which offers information on various components of operating an online business.

Second, I operate the the  Barnes Internet Marketer’s Resource Guide.  It’s chock full of resources that will help you operate your business on a day to day basis.