Most people are purpose-driven. Some people are goal-focused. The few who enjoy great success are those who have fine tuned their reasons for doing what they do and use the clarity of that exercise to guide their daily actions.

Copyright © GT Bulmer
http://www.StarrBizz.com

This morning, I returned to my home-based Internet business duties after being away for almost two weeks providing leadership services for a company during an annual project. Thank goodness it's only once a year - I missed my online business activity!

I got to thinking how great it is to have a business that you can put on auto pilot when the need arises; a business that keeps clicking along by itself for short periods when other priorities demand your attention.

One thought led to another and I started compiling a list of reasons why I enjoy building an Internet home business and why I like to tell others about tested and proven Internet home business ideas and opportunities that I have looked into.

My personal musings developed into the Top 10 list I present to you today either as food for thought or as a comparison to your own list. Here it is:

#1 - Work at Home!

#2 - No limit to income potential

#3 - Entire world is my marketplace/customer base

#4 - Low overhead costs for a home office

#5 - Work when I want

#6 - Work when my schedule allows it

#7 - Work at my own pace - not subject to the tyranny of the time clock

#8 - Work in privacy and solitude - much more relaxing and enjoyable!

#9 - Information, resources, marketing tools, coaching and support all readily available online

#10 - Minimal travelling and can spend more time with family

This is simply the list I put together based on my thoughts this morning. It may change from time-to-time.

While a list of reasons differs in many respects from a list of goals, reasons and goals serve a similar purpose. Each in their own way, they can serve to motivate and inspire you and help you stay clearly focused on the outcomes you desire.

Reasons energize you, push you forward, propel you onward and upward towards your goals.

Goals attract you, draw you forward, entice you with purpose and the assurance of reward.

Here is a "success tip": To add more power to your plans for prosperity, commit your reasons and your goals to paper and place them in a handy spot for daily review. Do this and you will experience the awesome power of the written word.

To be successful online, it helps to be purpose-driven and goal-focused. And if you take the time to fine tune a Top 10 list of reasons why a home based business is right for you, you will be above average and well on your way to greater success online.

Bottom line: you will be better prepared to recognize the tested and proven Internet home business ideas and opportunities that best fit your needs.

Sincerely,
GT
StarrBizz.com

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If you've ever worried that the Internet is over-saturated with savvy sellers of products and services and that there aren't enough customers left to give you a fair chance at financial success, have I got some good news for you!

Copyright © GT Bulmer
http://www.StarrBizz.com

I spend time every day in various Internet Marketing forums picking up information and inspiration on all sorts of interesting Internet home business ideas and opportunities. On occasion, a newbie marketer or a disillusioned dealer will express a concern over market saturation.

Certainly, I can understand the reasoning for their concern: when you see dozens, sometimes hundreds of Internet marketers advertising and promoting the same or similar products and services, you wonder if the market - that is, the customer base - is large enough to give everybody a chance at massive financial success.

Well, the good news is YES, there is plenty of room and limitless opportunity for anybody and everybody to make it big on the Net. I've got the evidence to support that statement.

As a writer, I know the value of providing statistics to back up a claim or a point of view. And believe it or not, there's the odd time when I actually get off my butt and do that bit of research to help support my articles and blogs!

Today is your lucky day. I found a Web site where Internet usage statistics are available, and let me tell you, the numbers are going to blow you away!

Internet World Stats provides a variety of highly informative charts and graphs detailing Internet users and population statistics from around the world. Here are a few highlights from the site (Statistics for Dec. 31, 2007, as listed on Internet World Stats at April 19, 2008).

World Total Internet Usage: 1,319,872,109
Yes, that is more than 1.3 BILLION Internet users around the globe! But that is not the most surprising number. That 1.3 billion represents only 20 percent of the world's total population (6,606,971,658)!

I will list the Internet usage statistics for Asia, Europe and North America here (see statistics listed for other countries and regions at the Internet World Stats site):

- Asia Internet Usage: 510,478,743 (13.7 percent of 3,733,783,474 total Asia population)

- Europe Internet Usage: 348,125,847 (43.4 percent of 801,821,187 total Europe population)

- North America Internet Usage: 238,015,529 (71.1 percent of 334,659,631 total North America population)

Internet Usage Growth, 2000-2007

- World Total: 265.6 percent increase

- Asia: 346.6 percent increase

- Europe: 231.2 percent increase

- North America: 120.2 percent increase

GT's Analysis and Interpretation of the Stats

Okay, here's what these statistics say to me:

1) There are 1,319,872,109 Internet users worldwide. That means that I, as an Internet marketer, have more than 1.3 billion potential customers (YOU do, too! Think about it.)

2) There are 5,287,099,549 people in the world not yet counted as Internet users. (These 5 billion people are potential Internet users and potential customers.)

3) Total world Internet usage grew by 265.6 percent from 2000 to 2007. (See how fast Internet usage is growing?)

4) As technology advances, Internet usage will continue to increase, so based on #2 and #3 above, we could see an annual increase in Internet usage in excess of 400 million new users (and potential customers) each year. (Do you still feel like you might run out of customers?)

Demand Grows For Internet Home Business Ideas And Opportunities

In the final analysis, I see the demand for Internet home business ideas and opportunities, as well as related products and services, growing at an accelerated rate alongside the rate of increase in worldwide Internet usage.

That means that dedicated and industrious Internet home business enthusiasts will never have to worry about running short of potential customers. And there will always be room for more marketers to enter the field.

Bottom line: identifying potential customers is not the issue - we've just learned there are more than a billion potential customers who surf the Net regularly. The real challenge, as usual, is adjusting and optimizing your Internet marketing activities to attract those millions upon millions of customers.

The tools of the trade are readily available. Do your research and find out how best to market online. But don't delay - paying customers are waiting for you.

Sincerely,
GT
StarrBizz.com

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is serious business: what was I thinking!

Copyright © GT Bulmer
http://www.StarrBizz.com

I don't know about you, but I suffer from information overload. And it almost crippled my Internet home business by making me slow to properly optimize my website for the search engines!

I am not an Internet techie by any stretch of the imagination. I am learning ... slowly ... but much of the technology behind websites, web pages and the Internet still mystifies me.

Of course, I have teamed up with a few Internet home business marketing groups who coach and encourage me, but in the beginning, when absolutely everything about Internet marketing was totally new to me, I was so overwhelmed by information overload that I nearly missed the most significant aspect of online marketing - Search Engine Optimization, otherwise known as SEO.

This is the (brief) tale of my personal SEO awakening. Mostly, I just want to highlight a few key points about SEO that I have been learning.

First, a bit of an explanation of what SEO is and why it's so important. Simply put, SEO is the process of using targeted keywords, specific HTML source code and certain elements in the presentation and structure of a web site. All this for the purpose of improving a site's positioning in the search engines to attract, not just more traffic, but better quality traffic - that is, people who are actively seeking what you have to offer.

The more effectively a site is optimized for the search engines, the greater chance it has of ranking higher in the search results for the chosen targeted keywords. And the higher a site ranks in the search results, the more likely searchers will be to visit that site. This type of traffic is often called natural, organic or algorithmic.

One other aspect of SEO is to identify and fix problems with a web site that might prevent search engines from completely indexing or spidering the site.

I know a number of successful Internet marketers who swear by organic SEO traffic and who do little, if any, regular advertising. That is how valuable SEO is and how important it is to properly SEO your site. That is, if you're hoping or planning for Internet home business success.

Now, my SEO Awakening story! When I first began developing my Internet home business I was completely green - a true "newbie." I read about SEO and I had an inkling of its importance, but I was learning so many new things, everything seemed like a priority to me!

I have always enjoyed writing, marketing and promotion and those things appealed to me, so that's where I focused my initial efforts. When I looked at all the info on SEO, well, it just all seemed so complicated and technical and that wasn't my area of interest or expertise, so I kept putting SEO on the back burner; on my "to-do" list, to do later. What a mistake that was!

Everything else I was doing certainly had its purpose and value, but I now know that I should have made SEO a much higher priority. I now promote SEO as a starting point, the foundation of a serious marketer's online efforts.

Here's a short-list of what I have been learning, lately:

- How to read and identify certain page and design elements in the HTML source code

- How to choose effective keywords and keyword phrases (long-tail keywords)

- The importance of "TITLE" tags, "HEADING" tags and other select tags: how to use keywords in these tags and where to place them in the coding for the site

- How to backup a web site before fiddling with the files and the code

- How to work with the index.html file (basically, your website) and how to upload it to your "file manager" with your web host

- How to add or delete page elements, like banners, frames, text boxes

As you can see, if you have any SEO experience at all, I haven't really progressed that far, yet! But I am progressing, and that's what counts.

While I am still suffering from information overload, I have readjusted my priorities and have developed a renewed confidence in the future of my Internet home business.

And now that the SEO student within has finally awakened, I am experiencing a greater sense of control, empowerment and freedom in my overall marketing efforts.

Reading HTML and performing the steps towards SEO is not easy. It takes time, patience, desire and determination, but when you fully understand the value SEO has to offer, you just know it is well worth the effort.

My advice to you today: awaken the SEO student within YOU!

Sincerely,
GT
StarrBizz.com

Recommended Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Learning Resource:

Brad Callen's SEO Made Easy - and bonus items! (Note: This is a FREE eBook, but you will be asked to subscribe to my free Internet Home Business Tips newsletter)

Read my earlier blog post highlighting Brad Callen's SEO eBook:

GT's blog post: Brad Callen's SEO Made Easy eBook

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I was bitten by the marketing bug years before the advent of the World Wide Web. In those days, mail order marketing was the big thing and to this day, I still own the first home based business training guide I ever purchased. You might be surprised at some of the products that were popular, oh so many years ago!

Copyright © GT Bulmer
http://www.StarrBizz.com

My first formal training in the wonderful world of sales and marketing came in the form of a 160-page book titled Plan For Mail Order Profits by David G. Baron. I'm not going to reveal how many decades ago that was!

David's Plan covered everything from what to name your mail order business, what equipment and supplies you would need, what products sell best by mail, how and where to contact the suppliers of those products and even professionally written ads to use to sell the products.

Some of the recommended products have long since gone out of date - I'll give a few interesting examples later in this article - but the Plan also provided a few checklists that still hold true today, no matter what type of marketing you do.

The Plan highlighted a number of key personal and emotional needs that a good product must fill if it hoped to succeed in appealing to the mass market. A few choice items from the list:

- Better health, greater strength, longer life
- More money, for self or to spend on others
- Improved Appearance: beauty, style, cleanliness
- More Comfort: convenience, luxury, self-indulgence, the good life
- Business Advancement: a more desirable job, greater success
- Personal Power: self-awareness, self-realization, emotional growth

The Plan provided a handy checklist for new products being considered. This is just a sampling of items from the list. It was good if you could answer "Yes" to these questions:

- Does it fill a need?
- Is it easy to use?
- Is the potential market big enough?
- Does the price seem to be a bargain?
- Are there dramatic features to exploit?
- Is there a reorder factor?
- Does it have year round appeal?

It was bad if you answered "Yes" to these questions:

- Is your discount less than 40 percent?
- Is it hard to visualize in an ad?
- Is it sold in stores?
- Is it similar to old-hat products?
- (And several other questions similar to those in the first
category, above, but expressed in reverse)

The Insider's Secret To Products That Can't Fail

The Plan gave tips on creative thinking and how to originate products. But it also revealed a technique for choosing products that you know, in advance, will be successful and profitable. While the technique is obviously decades old, it is still great advice for Internet home business marketers today.

The principle is this: Sell what is being sold successfully by others. If you can find a way to improve on the original, or add some unique innovation, all the better.

Peculiar Products From The Past

Okay. Here are a few of the products featured in the Plan For Mail Order Profits. Remember, this marketing guide was published in the mid-70s. Oops. I just let the cat out of the bag, didn't I?

SEE WITHOUT BEING SEEN! View Unsuspecting Subjects In Total Secrecy, $2 retail price for 8 by 10 inch size (Super spy mirror with special coating on one side.)

INSTANT HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA, $2 retail: (Probably fooled some of the people some of the time!)

SELF-CORRECTING TYPEWRITER RIBBON, $3.50 retail (Yes, kids, there was a time when keyboards tapped letters and characters onto a page through inked ribbons. Imagine the hassle of making corrections or changes? Self-correcting ribbons sold like hotcakes!)

WHAT'S YOUR I.Q.? TEST, $2 each, 3 for $5 (If you actually paid for this test, you already failed! No, just kidding. This sort of test is still very popular today, but now you don't have to pay for it - just search it on the Net.)

SKI RECORD, This Record Shows You How To Ski In 30 Minutes - Or You Pay Nothing!, $5.95 (Shows you how to ski? It's a vinyl record! I'll just wait for video to be invented, thank you.)

HYPNOTIZING DISK, Hypnotize Strangers In 30 Seconds! $2 retail (Now I wish I would have bought one! Then I could convert it to digital and upload it to my website and get EVERYbody to buy something!)

SCOTTY, a water-activated handwarmer, $4.69 retail - "Just add 2 teaspoonfuls of water and get 150F heat for 70 to 80 hours!" (Where was this product last January!)

SHAG TEE is your own portable golf range, $12.95 retail - "Shag Tee, regularly used, can quickly improve your score." (I'll bet!)

ANIMAL COAT-OF-ARMS proclaims your dog's ancestry, $11.97 retail - full color, framed in gold leaf, accompanied by a history of the breed (Hmm. Now THIS one's not a bad idea!)

There are numerous other recommended "hot sellers" in that '70s book, but these ones are a few of the more interesting ones. Just goes to show, there is a market for anything! And THAT principle holds true to this day, too.

Well, that was another of my strolls down memory lane. Hope you enjoyed the historic highlights.

Sincerely,
GT
StarrBizz.com

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My earliest marketing success was the result of a business partnership with a neighbourhood friend when we were about 12 years old. Even at that early age we understood the most basic of all marketing principles: find a need and fill it.

Copyright © GT Bulmer
http://www.StarrBizz.com

One hot summer day we decided that a Kool-Aid stand would be our quickest route to marketing riches.

We knew that "presentation" was half the battle of getting the attention of our targeted market and winning their confidence in our product. So the very first thing we did was design specialized paper hats with lettering that clearly announced, "Kool-Aid Vendor."

Next, we stretched our financial resources to the limit and purchased a couple of 6 gram packages of official Kool-Aid brand drink crystals. We understood that it was risky to sink our life savings into a marketing scheme that offered no guarantee of success or return, but we were confident that it was a calculated risk.

You see, we did our due diligence. We carefully analyzed the market conditions of the day: it was hot and sunny, so prospective customers should be thirsty. And we surveyed a sample group of targeted customers: kids in the neighbourhood who said "Sure! We'll buy Kool-Aid from you."

We then raided my Mom's cupboard for the required volume of sugar and carefully mixed up our first batch of product. After a few quality tests - very important before introducing any product to the market - we headed out into the field.

Our first customers were the kids from our sample group who had been watching our progress and were eagerly awaiting the results. See? Through advance promotion we had successfully created "market buzz!"

We charged them a penny or two, or maybe a nickel - whatever we could convince them to cough up. Encouraged by this early and enthusiastic response, we then went in search of new customers.

We found our windfall at the ball diamond on the next block. A few hot and thirsty ball players willingly forked over a nickel apiece for a cool glass of refreshment. Then one smart player offered to purchase the whole jug. We negotiated a fair price - $2 - and in one fell swoop, we unloaded our entire inventory! The crowd clamoured for more, but we had none to offer.

So, not wanting to waste a moment of obvious opportunity, we ran to the store, reinvested our profits in more drink crystals, then rushed back to my house to avail ourselves of more of the main ingredient from Mom's cupboard.

Unfortunately, when we returned to the ball diamond we discovered that the consumer had become wiser. Some of the spectators and family members of players brought in water jugs and other forms of liquid refreshment and the players were no longer interested in the services or the product of two aspiring junior entrepreneurs.

Since we had already tapped out the available funds of the kids from our neighbourhood with our first batch of Kool-Aid, we ended up sharing the remaining batch with them on an I.O.U. basis.

Still, it was a successful and immensely encouraging marketing experience for me and I'm certain that's where my passion for sales and marketing originated.

GT
StarrBizz.com

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