Now you can make money online typing in India. Typing for me is writing content or words or articles. Here is one way to make money and that is by writing articles.

Earn money online typing, One of the rare non-Apple laptops seen in an other…—Ed Yourdon (Flickr.com)

You must be thinking it is not possible to make any money writing articles right? It is very simple actually and you can use the strategy I use.

If you are able to write sentences then you should be okay. Pick up a niche or area of interest. Let us start with a niche like house appliances.

Now drill down to an appliance or product you would like to promote.

I have chosen a davincikalanim5501crib to promote because I like kids and kid products. Now write up some content for this product.

I broke it down as Features and Benefits and a poll. I also have added some things of interest to a potential buyer.

This is all for my content and typing work.

Earn Money Online Typing – Post on Squidoo

Next I make a lens – If you do not have a squidoo account then you must create one by going here >> Create a Squidoo Account

Sign up with Squidoo

Create a Lens

And post or publish it

Thats it you are done.

Repeat this process of lens creation for as many products you like.

Now you need to sen traffic over to the lens. I use a minimal link building using ezine articles and bookmarking.

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money and bank—401K (Flickr.com)

You can use these strategies to figure out the best ways to get started and choose the work from home opportunity which works for you the best.

Earn Money online in India without Investment

This is what I wanted when I got started off first. I had little to no money for venturing out into the making money gambit. Circumstances forced me to stay at home and I needed to find a source of income quick. That’s when I started off with my research on free ways to make money online.

I cam across an article which spoke about the concept called affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing in simple terms means promoting other people’s products. In exchange for a sale, the product owner will give you a commission or some money.

Today I made $100 in sales using this strategy. I used to use free blogs to write articles and promote my affiliate products. I made very few sales but was hopeful. Then I found this money making product (it is a paid one). I used it and my sales tripled. I did not use this strategy to its full potential and still I am getting results for work I did in Sept 2010.

Earn Money Online in India by Survey

You can also make money by taking part in surveys. How this works is companies want people to provide feedback on their products. It might be a new product they are launching or a new service. They are looking for people who identify or fit their customers profile and are willing to spend some time to answer a few questions.

Since these questions can make or break their business, they are willing to pay some money in exchange. There are many survey sites which you can register at. Make sure you use a separate email than your primary email address. Some of these survey companies (might) sell your email address and/or send a lot of promotional offers.

Earn Money Online in India for Students

I wish someone had let me know of these methods when I was a student. Strapped for cash or need extra cash – no worries. Just start

Student india, 2004-India-india055—FirstBaptistNashville (Flickr.com)

up  a blog or website related to your field of interest also known as a niche.

Write a few articles on keywords people are looking for. Publish these articles and create backlinks to them. Promote using twitter and social media and use Google Analytics to track your activities.

While this sounds simple, it does require a lot of thought and time. Stay tuned to the next article which will be picking up a topic one at a time and defining a strategy to take it off ground.

Students can also offer services like content writing, seo article writing, seo services, data entry.

These pay enough and more money to pay of bills.

P.S. It would be a great help if you could leave a comment below with what exactly you are looking for. Hopefully I can outline a strategy which you can use.

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Local business marketing, Market Sundays at Boxi-Platz—La Citta Vita (Flickr.com)

Simple, because that is how humans are.

We want someone to understand us, we want to fit in, yet we want to stand out. We want to look cool and look knowledgeable. We want to be liked and loved and understood.

Hint! Hint! So does your prospect. If you really did understand her needs you would offer her a solution which fits her requirements.

My Story and how it changed my LIFE

Last year due to some serious illness I was on a medication, which made me gain a lot of weight… This meant I needed new clothes. I went to a few clothes stores but was puzzled and frustrated by the variety (or lack of) of clothes. I did not know which to try on.

The clothes I did try on either were loose or too tight or made me look FAT. I still remember the day when I was in tears and called up a friend. I poured out all my concerns, and told her I couldn’t find a SINGLE decent dress. She suggested a shop which I went to. The service staff there was awesome. One lady asked me what I was looking for. I gave her a few suggestions. She made me wait a few minutes and returned with a few clothes.

Each and everyone fit me perfectly. They were just right for me. I purchased 2 right then and returned to purchase 2 more.

The shop has no clue on how much business this one sales girl has gotten them. I have referred many people to that shop. The sales girl seemed to understand me perfectly. Believe it or not, that one experience was a turning point in my life. I have never looked at sales like I did before.

This lady cared for what I wanted. She cared for my budget, my lifestyle requirements, and the choice of colours.

In my eyes, she will always remain an expert.

You might be wondering how you can get to know your prospective customer.  It is actually quite simple.

Local Business Marketing Ideas

Find out where people like to hang out. These might be forums, niche blogs, and yahoo answers. As you start studying your business you will be able to identify these waterholes. Next would be to visit these places yourselves and listen in to conversations and network.

Never promote yourself or brag about yourself here, just participate and help. Ask questions, answer questions yourself or research online and suggest a link.

Slowly you will be able to figure out all the trigger points, the concerns, the most asked questions, common issues, frustrations.  Use these to understand your prospects, to learn what they are looking for. You might be amazed that what you thought might be a major concern and what they actually think about something might be poles apart.

How else can a small business owner learn about their prospects?

Ask them.

Ask your prospects at a forum, on a niche blog, via a poll, via a questionnaire, a post on Facebook or Twitter.

How else can small business owners know what their prospects want?

By tracking their activities legally.

Check your Google Analytics and

1. Identify what pages people are looking at.
2. What are the keywords?
3. What are the exit pages – Where are they going?
4. Are the happy with what they find?  – bounce Rate
5. Are they walking through the same pages you had in mind? – Use sales funnels and goals to track this

The good part is that all this information is there at your fingertips for free.

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Google places, google place—hirotomo (Flickr.com)

If you wanted to search on google for a small business,then you will get local serach results on Google for all businesses listed for that service. The results will be a combination of both the website and the business listing.

Watch video on Google Places below to learn more.

Here is how to claim the Google Places listing for your small Business

Google has touted the benefits of Google for small businesses through various promotional videos. One service that doesn’t get a lot of public love in regards to small businesses is Google Places. The Google Places team.…

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Twitter business, Twitter for Small Business brianmoran marcyshinder…—jonny goldstein (Flickr.com)

How to market your local business on twitter effectively? Using twitter for business can be one of the smartest moves for a business owner. If you have researched online, you would have probably guessed that a lot of businesses are using twitter as one of their most important social media marketing platforms.

Benefits of Twitter for Business

Branding, reaching out to more potential customers, ability to connect with a new breed of consumers who are online and look for answers online.

Here are a few a good pointers on how to get online business marketing with twitter done right.

Get your local business on Twitter – Twitter Business Signup

First of all create a twitter account with your business name. Your account should look like http://twitter.com/#!/business-name

Twitter business, twitter achievement badge launched—Steven-L-Johnson (Flickr.com)

Next you must optimize the account. The steps involved would be to add a logo, optimize your tagline.  Add a good background image and your website URL or business URL.

Now if your business is targeting local customers only then it would be good to tag your tweets locally.

If you have a global audience this wouldn’t make sense for your business.

Use hash tags while ending out tweets. This makes them searchable when someone looks for the keyword you have added a hash tag for.

Hashtags is a great twitter feature which lets you organize your tweets and adds a visual effect to your tweets. If done properly the tweets do stand out from other tweets. Adding too many hash tags is like spam and can be very hard on the eyes. Focus on one or two and stick to that.

Add to Twitter Directories

Add your account to twellow and other twitter directories. These helps you get more visible – and you will get more followers.

Follow people and Retweet

Follow people in your niche. The best way to follow people is to follow leaders in your niche or industry. If you have a baby clothes shop, then follow other baby clothes retailers, shops. Once you follow them, follow their followers and people they are following.

Tips:

Make sure you check the profile of the people you are following. Follow at least 10 per day. If someone spams your timeline with too many updates, then unfollow them.

Retweet messages which you consider are worth retweeting. This will add some brownie points and people will like it and return the favour.

Ask people to retweet

This is a very powerful way to get more mileage for your tweets. Ask other twitter users to retweet your messages. This will make sure that your message appears across different timelines and can reach more people than you could ever hope of reaching.

Share your tweets on your website, Squidoo lens, Facebook page to get more traffic and to build up conversations.

Why Twitter is Great for Small Business WLTX.com

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This technique is one of the Off Page SEO Techniques which can be utilized by small businesses.

Grab a twitter account with your location in the name. Optimize this twitter account with an avatar image which is geo specific.

The bio of the twitter account should be specific to that location or city.

Follow people in your location. After all you are catering to these people. Post relevant content (relevant to your location, including latest events, happenings, news)

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social media Syndication Network Flowchart" width="240" height="175" />

Off page seo, social media Syndication Network Flowchart—LocalGoogleGuru (Flickr.com)

SEO in simple terms is Search Engine Optimization, which means optimizing your web property for search engines, so that people looking for what you have to offer can locate your web property easily.

What is a web property? A web property can be any of these:

• Website
• Blog
• YouTube
• Channel
• Facebook Account
• Twitter
• Zimbio
• Squidoo
• Hubpages

So what is optimization?

You are essentially placing keywords in images (with proper names and alt tags), inter links (contextual links), page names, in a natural and user-friendly manner, but which can be used by search engines to rank your page as per its algorithm.

Why do you want to bother with SEO?

So that your website comes up when someone is looking for a product or service you are offering.

I have paid someone for on-page SEO and it is done. Why do I need off-page seo?

Good Question!

Long ago I read somewhere online that the Internet is like a pie. The more of it you own the better. The bigger your slice the better for your website and the more easily you can be found. For me Off Page SEO means leaving footprints on the Internet, which make it easier for people to find me or my service.

Let me ask you a Question. Have you used Yellow Pages for searching for a service?

Yellow pages, yellow-pages-australia—Doug Beckers (Flickr.com)

You probably have.

Suppose you were looking for a plumber. You would either

1. Call a relative and ask for a reference
2. Look up Yellow Pages
3. Ask your neighbour or landlord
4. Search Online

I use the Internet a lot. I look at JustDial – a service which is free to use. I can even call Justdial using a toll free number and they will SMS me a few numbers (of plumbers) when I ask for a plumber.

The point is, now that you know where you are looking and the steps you would take to look for a plumber, shouldn’t you be marketing your plumbing or web designing business in the same manner?

I use Google and probably 95% of people who use the Internet use this search engine too. So as a business owner, blogger, service provider, I must make an effort to list myself in Google somehow.

I want to position my blog on the first page of Google. But how can I do that?

Tip  – Remember your customers will also perform similar activities as you would.

Now, that you know where they are most likely to look, why not place an advertisement there?

This is how I approach Off Page SEO.

I type in the keyword I am optimizing for in Google. I look at all the listings on the first few pages.

Squidoo logo—bethd821 (Flickr.com)

1. If there is a classified website, I place my advertisement there or add a listing.
2. If I find a directory then I add my listing.
3. Web 2.0 property like Squidoo or Hubpages turns up – Add a lens or Hubpages
4. Article Directory – Add an article for my company.

See how easy it is?

Next if it is a business with a physical address I use Business Review Pages. I also add a Google Places and Yahoo Places Listing.

By this time I usually notice a boost in rankings. Most SEO companies you pay money to do not perform all these.

There is another reason why you MUST use Business Review Pages. Business Review Pages allow users to leave reviews, feedback and comments about your business.

This is why search engines visit these sites often. After all a search engine wants to provide relevant and the best information to its users right? What better results than to show real time reviews?

Here are other ways to perform off page SEO over time. By the way those are the only activities performed by most SEO companies and I know because I have worked in those companies.

1. RSS Submissions
2. Bookmarking
3. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
4. YouTube video
5. Article Marketing
6. Forum Participation
7. Commenting on websites and Blogs
8. Using coupon site
9. FourSquare
10. Craigslist Marketing

How inbound marketing and SEO work together. Dynamic Business blog This is essentially what search engine optimisation SEO is all about. There are two different types of SEO. On-page SEO relates to how well your website’s content is presented to the search engines. Off-page SEO looks at your website’s overall SEO PPC The Comprehensive Starting Points for Driving Mobile TrafficSearch Engine Watch. Using Off-Site Outreach to Increase Website Conversion The Four Pillars of Business 2 Community. Is Google’s Over Optimization Penalty Its Jump The Shark Moment In Web Search Marketing Land. Kingpin Webmaster News. all 69 news articles.…

These were some ideas to get started with Off Page SEO for your local business. Are you a business owner? Do you own a blog? Which off page techniques have worked for you? Have you used Business Review pages?

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Feedback from blog survey—dougbelshaw (Flickr.com)

Getting traffic on your blog is a very difficult task if you have just started online. You have all these great posts to share but no one seems to stop by. No traffic means no eyeballs and no sales!

So how does one get traffic to the blog?

I have stopped relying on search engines to get traffic to my blog. Not thta I do not appreciate this traffic but I have started getting a lot more traffic from other sources.

Here are a few of my main sources of free traffic to my blog.

Blog With Authenticity Without Getting Fired—Search Engine People Blog (Flickr.com)

1. Blog commenting

   Commenting on blogs in my niche is something I started recently. This has not given me a lot of traffic but there is a consistent dribble from this one source. Also, I get backlinks and lots of visibility.

2. Posting in Forums

   This strategy works for me like a charm. The most important part of this strategy is connecting with people, answering questions and helping people. I never promote myself but leave my link in the signature.

3. Guest Posting

   Guest Posting is again something which is relatively new for me. This has helped me get a lot of visitors and exposure as a blogger.

Draw in search engine traffic – Watch video

This video shows how to use PLR content to draw in traffic to your blog or website.

Some topics covered in the video above

• Start off with word tracker or your favorite keyword tool
• Look up some low competition keywords
• Rewrite content with your keywords (2% density)
• Make sure keywords appear in page title, article links, H1 etc

What are your main sources of traffic to your blog? Which are the best and which are not so good?

Leave a comment.

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Social media marketing plan, Social Media Marketing Mobile Mobile Marketing Mob…—bizbuzzmedia (Flickr.com)

There is no hard and fast rule for social media marketing and the plan will definitely vary based on your website’s or companies requirements. Remember to keep the following strategies and ideas in your marketing efforts. Include the major social media properties Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn in your social media marketing efforts. These will go a long way in helping you gain mileage in your local business online marketing efforts.

How about creating a social media persona?

Create a social media persona you can use to connect with your target audience or prospects. This persona is a reflection of your ideal prospect, has her own personality, a name, and can easily understand and communicate with your prospects. She represents them and knows them and your prospects will connect with her easily. This might not always be necessary for all companies but it is a very effective way of marketing.

Here is an example of a Social Media Persona

Lisa has a beauty parlor and wants to use the power of social media to attract new customers and get a feedback of her services. Her beauty parlor mostly targets women between the ages of 18 to 35 yrs and provides some exclusive spa and skin treatments. Her ideal customer loves to spend money on the latest haircuts and wants to be updated on the beauty trends including tips on how to live a balanced life, balance work and kids, lose weight and some home remedies.

Let us create a personal named Teressa. Teressa is 25 years old. She earns around $20,000 per year and loves to pamper herself. She loves traveling meeting friends and is a beauty freak. She is always exploring the Internet for new beauty treatments and tips. She is cautious on what she eats and what she wears. She has her won Facebook account, email account, twitter account and she shares her thoughts on these accounts.

Another example of a social media persona

Tim is a realtor and has a website which he is looking to promote online. He creates a persona called Dave Trey. Here is how he describes Dave.

1. Dave is 40 years old.
2. He loves trekking, painting and renovating
3. He helps people buy and sell homes and gives them home remodeling tips.
4. He has an email address.
5. He has a professional writing style.
6. He earns $70,000 per year.

Social Media Marketing Plan Examples

What do you do with this persona?

Now, Tim uses Dave to promote his website. He creates a Facebook account for him. He uploads a picture for Dave. It might be a picture which he has purchased online or a gravatar or a picture which he has styled. He optimizes Dave’s Facebook profile. This is done by adding his contact email & company information and all other relevant information where required. The same social media strategy is used on other web properties like Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

Now Dave is a representative of Tim’s real estate company.

• He communicates and reaches out to people.
• He posts articles of interest to prospective buyers.
• He provides tips and tricks.
• He posts articles on other websites which might interest the prospects.
• He promotes Tim’s real estate business as well.

Social Media Marketing Plan Outline

A Social media Marketing strategy for you to use today

1. Identify main keyword(s) for your business – “local business online”
2. Identify secondary keywords – “local online marketing” “online business marketing”
3. What would your prospective customers like information about? – “marketing on Facebook” “improving conversions” “tracking sales and visitors”
4. Find some good articles, resources, products and tools to help them get this information.
5. Send out regular updates on your web properties.
6. Send an occasional money offer or promotional offer (liking to your website or your affiliate link).
7. Use Google Analytics and other tracking tools to track everything.
8. Respond to queries and questions and negative feedback promptly.
9. Genuinely help he customers
10. Promote your web properties

How frequently should you post these messages onto your social networks?

For a B2C type of business 3 to 4 posts a day is a good number without information overload. Keep a track of your subscribers and notice if they are unsubscribing in a hurry. This means you are posting too much, too often and worse something which they don’t like. So the warning bells should go off now.

For a B2B business 1 or 2 messages per day is more than enough.

To wrap it all up, remember a social media marketing plan is a plan. Follow it, stick to it, yet be flexible enough to update when necessary. Also, include some time for

1. Responding to comments
2. Negative feedback
3. Monitoring the social media space

What do you think might go in a Social Media Plan for a small business? Do you agree or disagree with these thoughts? Please share some advice and insights today below.

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While marketing your local business online make sure that you focus on the basics. Online marketing is for fulfilling a purpose. The purpose might include branding, creating awareness, generating leads, increasing sales. Whatever the goal is, it all is useless if it does not involve relationship marketing, connecting with prospects, communicating, reaching out, giving and being grateful.

When I started online in 2004, I read a few blogs on affiliate marketing and I “assumed” I knew it all. I immediately churned out a blogspot blog, slapped a few affiliate banners and waited for sales. I waited many years and I did not make a penny. I even shared my blog with my best friends and was not making a dime. I lost a few friends and gained nothing. What was a I doing wrong? If you have been into affiliate marketing or have been promoting online, you will be grinning. I know that you are probably aware that marketing online is not about pushing an idea, a product, a proposition down somebody’s throat. It is not about pitching the next best deal to family and friends. No. This is the best way to get rid of friends and family.

Marketing online as I later learnt is all about building relationships. It is about being there for people in need, answering questions, addressing concerns and establishing yourself as a leader. You might not know it all but it is okay if you are able to share some of your knowledge to help solve people’s problems.

Around January 2010 I came across an excellent make money from home product and started making some money online. I used it for barely 2 weeks and then had to head to the hospital for delivery. This product I later realized was working for me because it was helping me build relationships and learn the problems of people I wanted to market to. By understanding their concerns I was able to solve some problems and establish myself as a leader. In return people were interested in purchasing products I recommended.

The product had a 60 day plan which worked for me. It was a step by step plan which forced me to use it. I had a baby in Feb 2010 and that was the end of my marketing efforts. For a few months I did not see a dime. One day I had a direct deposit for a substantial amount in my bank (after 6 months). I traced it back to my marketing efforts performed in January 2010.

Since then I have been consistently earning from that source. I am so grateful for this constant supply which is dribbling in even today. Imagine 1 or 2 weeks of half hearted work and money for years. Now my child is 2 years old and I have decided to ramp up my online activities and do what I do best – making money online. J

What I have learnt over the years is never sell anything (blatantly). Connect with people, build relationships, and gather trust and credibility. One you have the basics correct then the money just follows and not the other way around.

What online marketing concerns do you have for your local business? Do you have a tip to share? Do you have a success story? Please leave us a comment below.

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