Building An Online Home Business – My Personal Journey
A few days ago I saw an article at AmericanChronicale.com by Cynthia Minnaar. Like me Cynthia lives a long way from the US and has experience with the Plug-in Profit site .
I wrote to Cynthia asking if she would write a little about her on-line marketing experience. She very kindly accepted.
Cynthia’s blog is here – please take time to pay a visit.
Here is Cynthia’s story………
Before I relate my experience of building an online home business, I feel it is so important at the outset to stress the fact that it takes time, patience, determination and a willingness to learn.
I am certain that the reason so many people get totally disappointed and disillusioned is because their expectations are far too high and they quit within the first couple of weeks or months when they have not made any money.
This is understandable because when we start an online home business we do so for the purpose of making money. Plus we expect to make money immediately. Unfortunately, it does not work like that – you have to go through the business building process before making money.
I started my online home business on the 28th April 2006. This was not my first attempt as I had previously joined many programs and wasted money because I had expected to make money quickly. Every program I joined required that I market my referral link and this was where I was failing. I realize now that I actually had no idea what internet marketing was all about and, I believe, it is the key to building a successful online business.
My current online home business started when I joined the Plug-in Profit Site Program (PIPS) where you not only get a fully automated website setup with 5 or 6 affiliate programs, but you can choose your own domain name plus you receive a comprehensive 30 days to success Internet Income Training guide.
The training guide taught me all about internet marketing and with the support of the other members in the forum I came to realize what it would actually take to build a successful online business and that it was going to take time.
I got to work and I have used the absolute minimal of funds to build the business to where it is today, (June 2007). I paid my monthly hosting account, auto-responder and two pro memberships to the affiliate programs. I do not buy any advertising or traffic.
I had no knowledge of html but through trial and error I have learnt. This was a vital step I had to take early on in order to be able to optimize my site for the search engines as well as make it look different from the other PIPS sites.
After optimizing my site I learnt how important it was to start building back links to my website in order for it to appear on the first page of Google for organic searches.
To build those thousands of back links I have used 3 methods. The main one being article marketing. I had not had any previous experience of writing articles, but I learnt to optimize my articles with keywords from my website and link my main keywords to my site in the author’s resource box. I do not purchase articles at all. I write 2 – 3 a week and submit them manually to high PR article directories, about 50 in all.
The second method I use to build back links is by submitting my website to the web directories and exchanging links with other sites. I did purchase the Link Machine to make life a bit easier when it came to link exchanging.
The third method I have used is Forum posting.
Building back links and making your presence felt on the internet is what takes the time and this is where patience and determination is needed. You can check your back links daily and if they are increasing then you know you are on the right track.
It has taken months to build the business to the point that my website now appears on the 1st and 2nd pages of Google for many keywords and a lot of my articles appear in the same positions. My back links increase daily and visitors to my site have reached 1000/day this month (June 2007).
I have added some other programs to my site, added many pages of mainly my own content (the site started as a single page) and I have recently upgraded to Pro in the other affiliate programs. I kept my expenses to an absolute minimum and I waited until the money started to come in before upgrading.
That is how I have built my online home business so far and I will continue to use the same 3 highly effective internet marketing methods. It has not been all plain sailing. I have been dropped from the Google organic search for certain keyword phrases, but then I just write another article with the same keyword phrase and my site reappears again! Treat each setback as a challenge and this way you will learn more and become more motivated and determined.
Once the site does appear on the 1st page of Google for a variety of keywords, the hardest part is sticking at it until you attract enough visitors daily to make sales or signups. Who really knows what that magic figure is? For my site it took between 500 and 600 a day. To increase it I write more articles, create more web pages and optimize them for different keywords plus continue submitting the site to web directories and exchanging links with other relevant sites.
But the most exciting part now is that you know how you got this far and so you must just keep doing what you have been doing and NEVER QUIT.
About the Author
Cynthia Minnaar is the owner and webmaster of www.cyns-home-biz.com, the online home business site for internet income and marketing training, online business startup ideas and income opportunities. You can start your own online home business today with an Income Generating Website set up free within 24 hours.
Copyright 2007 © Cynthia Minnaar
Filed under: Success Stories
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For me, the most important point that any new online business person can take from Cynthia is the need to learn some basic html. Without it, you, your site and therefore your business are pretty well dead in the water before you start,
Steve
Time, patience and perseverance!
You’re right in saying that a lot of people don’t understand that these are the most important factors in marketing any website (not just the “make money online” blogs).
Having writing skills helps as well, which you seem to have.
Cynthia Minnaar’s story is very inspiring. It has motivated me to work harder.
Cynthia’s article is itself an example of successful article distribution, is it not? And it works well. I agree for the most part that article distribution can be effective but more because it can generate traffic than because of the Google Juice or whatever you want to call it. Of the resulting traffic, hopefully some will link to your site themselves or bookmark it for future reference, and that’s where you get your link juice from.
BB
Nice article and as BB says a good example of article marketing at work. Would love an update as to how she’s getting on.
I also wanted to note that hard work is the key to all of this. Without that success is impossible. Once a good foundation is built, it is easier to move along, but nothing comes easy.
It sometimes can take years to succeed with a business idea and get it to work well online, getting traffic , good links and building your websites reputation online. Once you crack it you will benefit hugely. Most of all don’t give up :)