Friday, February 22, 2013

5 FREE Things You Can Do Now to Build an Online Business

Are you wondering how to start a business online? Would you like to build online business for free? Well, you're in the right place!

Starting your own online business can be fun, rewarding, and profitable. It definitely takes time, but you'll be happy to know that it doesn't have to take a large financial investment.

In fact, you can begin to build online business for free, starting right away! Below are 5 strategies that you can begin to implement this week!

1. Start Tweeting

Running an online business is best accomplished once you've established a large social network. Today's savvy marketers are using online marketing to do so, and Twitter is the hottest place to be to build online business!

This social media giant, once used primarily as a means to communicate quickly with friends and family, has grown in popularity as a free marketing tool. the site grew by 1,382% between Feb 2008 and Feb 2009 as a result of the masses of people joining Twitter for help in running an online business,.

Twitter offers great tutorials and a free sign up link at help.twitter.com/portal.

The best way to build online business contacts using Twitter is to target and follow about 100 people each day. Connect with others who may be interested in your business; for example if you're in the health and wellness field, begin to follow others who are health conscious.

A large majority of those you follow will follow you back. You can delete those who don't. By following 100 new people each day, and deleting those who don't follow you back, you'll create a large following in a short period of time.

Of course this won't help you build online business unless you can build relationships with your followers. Your goal should be to interact with others, always providing value, entertainment, or education. Never pitch your business or your product! As with all things in life, you want to establish a connection and build a friendship before expecting others to care about your business!

2. Get On Facebook

Facebook, much like Twitter, is a viral and free social media site that can be incredibly effective in helping you build online business. Although Facebook has been around for many years it's still growing in popularity, with a 228% growth rate between Feb 2008 and Feb 2009.

Unlike Twitter, which limits the number of characters you can "tweet" to 140, Facebook allows you the opportunity to carry out full conversations.

Many online marketers use both Facebook and Twitter to meet others and develop relationships, which is what I recommend that you do. You'll want to follow the same rules of etiquette on Facebook as you do on Twitter, and over time you'll have a large list of potential customers and business partners.

Your best approach is to add 100 followers each day When adding friends be sure to include a personal message with each friend request. Yes this extra step is more time consuming but also offers a much more personal approach, which is the idea!

3. Article Marketing

Article marketing is free, can be done in a short amount of time, and can draw unlimited numbers of visitors to your website to help you build online business.

Articles should be educational, entertaining, or inspirational to the reader, and are not to be used to promote your directly. Authors who are running an online business are given the chance to advertise themselves or their businesses in the Authors box. As you begin to have articles posted you'll find that when you give great content, your readers will click on your links, helping you to build online business.

The best article directory to use is EzineArticles. If you wish to submit to multiple article directories there are many of them on the Internet, but be careful! If your information is displayed more than one place online, it may be penalized by the search engines, which frown on duplicate content. A good tactic is to rewrite the article for each article directory, mixing the words and paragraphs around as much as possible.

4. Build Online Business by Tapping Into Free Training

Running an online business requires a knowledge of many different Internet techniques. You can find a great deal of free information on the Internet that can help you learn. It can be overwhelming and confusing, which is why I believe in choosing one mentor rather than jumping from one to another.

When I was starting to build online business I was signing up for every free training series I saw online. In no time at all my inbox was being flooded on a daily basis with so much information that I got stuck in information overload!

You'll want to find a mentor that offers high quality, free information that you can use immediately to get started. The amount of time you save weeding through the fluff offered by many internet trainers will make a huge difference in your business.

5. Sign Up for a WordPress Blog

We all know that in order to successfully build business online you need to separate yourself from all of the other online marketers. You need to brand yourself, to let others get to know, like and trust you.

Millions of people are driving online traffic to their replicated, identical company websites. What you need is something that sets you apart, an edge that will help to position you as an expert in your field.

A blog is the most effective tool you can ever have to successfully build business online. Your Twitter and Facebook friends, and those who read your articles, will want to learn more about you. When you provide them links to your personalized blog, rather than a cookie cutter company replicated website, you establish yourself as a true leader. And we all know that people follow leaders!

The best site to use for a blog is WordPress.org. This site offers free blogs and it's the only blog site that offers you full ownership. What that means to you is that your site will never be at the mercy of a company that could at any time bring your business to a screeching halt by pulling the plug.

Always remember that running an online business should be seen as a marathon, not a sprint to the finish line. It takes a great deal of learning and time. My advice is to "eat the elephant one bite at a time". If you use this philosophy to build business online, do everything possible to learn the principles of online marketing, and commit yourself to taking action, your business will flourish!

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