Before You Say Internet Marketing Is Crap, Read This First

If you are reading this article, it mean that you are not new to internet marketing (IM). There are a lot of self-claimed IM guru out there. I know many people lose thousand and thousand of dollars trying to learn the art of IM. The beauty of IM is, you only do your business online. You don't have to meet even one person to make your business grow.

Some people lose their money for nothing. They buy products to make them rich online but in the end they are just losing more money. This kind of situation is what we all want to avoid. We don't want to buy products that don't work. But greed can overcome one's emotion and that is the beginning of failure.

If you are in this situation, you would probably says that IM is crap or whatsoever. You will feel that it is a scam or a get-rich-quick scheme or a pyramid scheme. Well, many of IM gurus promote this kind of stuff anyway. If you are still trying to make money and this is your fourth or fifth month blogging, you are in the right path. Just don't give up just yet.

For some people who says IM is a scam, continue reading this article. If you are talking about scam, I have tons of them. What even better is, they are licensed and known by the government. It is not actually scams, just like IM, they are businesses but its going nowhere.

In my country, Malaysia, there are a lot of opportunities given by the government or organizations for the people to do business and make the people become success in their life for the country. I will tell you two examples below:

1. Leech breeding

Leeches for breeding

This was popular around 2008 - 2010 if I am not mistaken. A few organizations offer leeches to breed to the public. You do not need license to breed leeches. As long as you have a large barrel or keg, you can breed them quite easily. If you have a small terrain, it is even better.


Why do you breed leeches?
There are saying that leeches are important for the medical field. Leeches can suck blood clots and cancer cells. Even the government encourage the public to breed leeches to increase one's income. At that time, companies selling leech for breed grows like mushrooms.

The Problem
What people doesn't know about leech breeding is, it is hard to breed. Leech feed on blood. To find a good source of blood, leech breeders give the leeches catfish. Catfish is not cheap and you have to give it to the leeches everyday or your leech would grow thin or die. The company who buys back adult leeches won't buy thin and small adult leeches.

Most of the leech breeders are part timers and they breed small amount of leeches at their backyard in a few barrels. This leeches often die from starvation or not enough food to take. With only a few leeches left, it is not enough to return the capital money. What even worse, no company is willing to buy back a few leeches.

That is not the worst part. The worst part is the companies who handles the leeches gone on by one until there are no party who wants to buy leeches anymore. You will eventually lose more than half of the money for the startup. No more leeches, what are you going to do with the large barrels? Its not cheap so I doubt that you would throw it away.

2. Planting Jatropha/Castor Oil Plant
I don't know how many of you who reads this article know what is a castor oil plant and how do it look like. Here, we call it jatropha or 'jarak' in the Malay language. This plant gain its popularity on 2010-2012.

Why Do You Plant It?
Castor oil plant are said to have special oil called biodiesel that can replace the current diesel but with environmental friendly aspects. To plant the castor oil plant, you need a large land for farming. You need a large quantity of these plant to create the biodiesel.

Castor Oil Plant

The Problem
There are many problem than profit in planting castor oil plant. The need of a piece of land, plant maintenance, time and energy, it is really not worth it. There are rarely an individual who are farming this plant because it requires a large sum of 'downpayment' to start the business. So, mostly the farmers are companies or individuals who have extra large cash.

Biodiesel is still on experiment and the market is not large enough to make profit. Only a few machine have tested the biodiesel and not all machine can use it. Most of the companies flows down the drain with a very fast pace. I even saw with my own eyes that the land used to farm the plant are left with only bushes and ghost building.

Conclusion
As for conclusion, scam can come with many faces if they want to. People always blame other people online for their failure. Some businesses are not meant to fail but lack of research makes people lost their money in something that is not certain.

The best recipe for failure is greed. I already write an article about greed and you can read it here. When a person stop being greedy and start a real business, with hard work, there is no way that they will fail.

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Top 4 Most Easy Ways To Make Money Online

For some people who still do not understand, if talking about making money online, all they can think of is blogging. This is because the internet marketers promote blogging more than any other money making ways on the internet. For those who already familiar with internet marketing, they know that blogging is not the fastest way but the safest and longest.

Do you want to know what is the fastest way? Do you even know that there are other fastest way to earn your first dollar online? Below is the top 4 most fastest way to make money online.

4. Become a freelancer

If you have any skills, talent or even have the looks, register your name in the freelance website available on the internet. I have seen the silliest thing that anyone can do on the internet to make money and they get paid for it.

Freelancers at Fiverr have the most silly and weirdest job
description on the internet

The best thing to do before registering is to know what is your skills and specialties. The highest paid freelancers are usually professionals. They can easily get a few hundred dollars for a few hours per day. How cool is that? It is truly the comfort of working from home.

If you have the skills and interested in working from home, you can register at Freelancer, Elance and Fiverr.

An early warning to you that people who hires will prefer freelancers who already have good reputation and high rated. As a new freelancer, you need time to get your first job online.

3. Forex Trading

This is also one of the famous method to make money online. But forex trading is not for everyone. You must know how to trade before you start. There are many forex trading simulation online that you can learn from. Or you can ask someone to teach you to trade.


It is advisable that you don't trade if you are a total newbie. Forex trading involves a lot of money. If you don't have any experience, you can lose a lot of money in a blink of an eye.

I think I don't have the experience to give any advice about forex trading because I don't trade. You can ask around or ask for someone who knows about online trading. However, by doing it right, you can earn a fat paycheck by doing forex trading.

2. Online Betting

A lot of people loves online betting especially involving sports. The biggest online betting are in football or soccer. It is the most popular sport in the world and the influence can make people go loco. Most popular online betting system is from UK because football is popular there.

But it doesn't only target football. You can bet in any kind of sports or event. There are even people who bet on an election campaign.

You don't need to have special skills to bet. Its just following instinct and luck. Be warn that this is gambling. You can lose some and you can earn some. But it is worth to mentioned as the fastest way to make money online.

1. Online Gambling

This is my personal favourite. I love gambling but now I don't have the time to gamble anymore. A few of the gambling sites are also not allowed from my country. The most popular gambling game online is poker and blackjack.

Most people gamble online for fun and to kill their free time. This is like the people tells you 'here's my money, take it'. That is why online gambling is on top of my list about the fastest way to make money online.

My early warning, this is gambling, it involves money like betting and you can lose a lot of money if you get addicted. Gambling also require skills like top poker players in the world.

#Bonus

I want to add one bonus on the most fastest way to make money online that is scamming. You can laugh all you want but this method is also popular, fast and effective.

People are filled with greed that they will do anything to make money. Just build a few websites or send emails to people and see how it work like magic. In my country, Malaysia, you really can get rich quick by scamming people.

But this method is not recommended but it is still worth to mentioned. You can earn a lot of money by scamming but it also the fastest way to land you in jail if you get caught.

Conclusion

As conclusion, you all can assume that the best and fastest way to make money online is to have special skills or talent. Without skills and talent, it's hard, damn hard.

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No Tech Skills? NO Problem!

Around the world, at this hour, so many people want to make money online. This is because there is proof of people are living in cloud 9 because of internet business. It is true though. We really can make a living through a dot com lifestyle.

But not everything is good or as easy as it sounds. Most internet entrepreneurs will come to a small obstacle called technical skills. If you have zero experience in tech skills, it will be very hard to start. Don't ever believe if someone try to sell you something and tells you that you don't need any tech skills.

Of course, in some cases, you really don't need it. That is because the person who is teaching you to make money will teach you about tech skills. So you see, you will need the skills to improve and to gain knowledge.

If you are a true beginner or a newbie, there is nothing to worry about. You will learn tech skills whether you pay for it or ask your friends to teach you.

What I want to share with you today is a few website that can help you with tech skills. However, this will come with a warning. Don't depend too much on paid skills. You should learn how to do things by yourself. But, if you are a busy person, below is the website you should look at.

Master-Resell-Rights
This is a website for you to find information that you need in cheaper price. Most tech ebook on Clickbank will sell a lot higher than master-resell-rights.

In short, Master-Resell-Rights is like Clickbank but way more cheaper. They also sell ebooks. I love ebooks. It is the fastest way to find a book that you need. The website also contains a lot of topics and various ebook collections.

The good thing about Master-Resell-Rights is that you have the resell rights with any purchase that you make. Some ebook's resell rights allowed you to modify the content of the ebook and make the ebook looks like yours. That mean you will have all the rights to do what you want with the ebook.

The bad thing about Master-Resell-Rights is you don't have the money-back-guarantee like Clickbank. If you don't like the ebook that you buy, you can't do anything about it. Some of the ebooks are also low quality. This is the risk that you have to take when you buy from Master-Resell-Rights.

Elance.Com / Freelancer.Com
Most of internet entrepreneurs who have the skills use this website to earn money online. For those who don't have the skills, this is the place to hire somebody with the skills you require.

The only thing that you have to look out for is the price. Skilled 'workers' will demand higher fees for their service. But for some people, they don't mind paying for a good service. Read the previous comments and ratings about the person who you want to hire before hiring them.

Fiverr.Com
Fiverr also sells specific skill. The only difference is that Fiverr fixed its price to $5.00 per gigs. They called it gigs and I personally hate that term they used. It's not a rock band duh..

At Fiverr you can find almost any skills you require, from the complicated to the silliest and all for just 5 bucks. If you require any jobs to be done faster or any additional jobs, you will have to pay more. You can view the additional payment when you view a person's profile.

Final Words
Tech skills are important to internet entrepreneurs even though you don't have to learn complicated codes like a website developers.

If you are willing to learn slowly, that is the best way to do it. But sometimes learning is not the issue. Some people need their work to be done asap. In some issue, there is too much work to be done. Next time, if you feel you need some help or learn something, don't forget to check out the websites above.

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Shocking Truth About Making Money Online

When talking about on how to make money online, I'm sure that everyone who are interested in this topic will come across hundreds of products online especially ebooks. Sounds familiar to you? Well, read on.

These products are claimed to be "the best" product by the seller. When you fall for the ads, you will eventually buy the ebook.

I don't know if anyone who reads this blog has done some homework about trying to make money online so I assume that everyone did. Top bloggers usually have "free gifts" on their blog and usually it is also an ebook. I downloaded a few of this ebooks and the ebook are mostly basics of blogging.

Blogging is the core of making serious money online. With a blog, internet entrepreneurs can promote, reach their customers, interact and they can do so much just by using a blog. That is why so many people are promoting making money online by encouraging their readers to build a blog.

Are you ready for the shocking truth? Do you know that the free versions of ebooks are as good as the paid ones? As shocking as it sounds buts it's the truth. You can get it for free! How cool is that?! You can get the same content on paid ebooks from free ebooks and vice versa.

How can this be? These products are hyped (most of it). It is some kind of white lies that the promoter told you to get their products sells like hot cakes. For the owner of the product, now you will know why your product is refund by buyers.

Blogging is only about building and owning a blog. The next step is bringing traffic. That's it! There are no shortcuts to it or shortcuts to make money. Everyone who is familiar with a blog knows that a blog will take from six months to years to be known.

But it is not a bad thing. If you are a first timer, you can buy these kinds of ebooks. Just don't go overboard with your budget. A cheapskate in building a business is worse. Sometime you need to invest a bit in learning your way up.

Conclusion
Don't get me wrong. I love ebooks. It gives me the information that I need to build my business. What I want everybody to understand here is you need to buy only the things that you need. I can't force you not to buy because it is your choice.

But if you buy a ton of stuff, you will suffer a symptom called information overload. You won't be able to start anything because there is too much information in your head. Then, you will blame the products that you bought saying it doesn't work.

Learn one step at a time until you reach the top. Remember that there is no shortcut.

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The Story of The Tennis Player

There was this tennis player and lets called him Adam. Adam is a working man and he is a great tennis player. He is so good that he can beat everyone in his department and becomes the best tennis player in his workplace.

In this week, I've been to my organization's seminar about entrepreneurship. So, I don't have the time to update this little blog of mine. But, there is a great story that our new CEO told us and I like to share it here with everyone. It is called "The Story of The Tennis Player".

He even won many championships outside his workplace and this makes his name well-known in the local tennis world.

One day, John, Adam's colleague challenges Adam to a tennis match. John doesn't know much about tennis but he determines to learn and to give Adam a good opponent. Seeing John's determination, Adam agrees and accepts the challenge.

Before the match, John asks Adam to give him some time to learn about tennis. They both agree to meet again during the match after six months. John is very happy to give his best friend a good match because they both know that no one in the department can match with Adam.

Starting from that day, John is burning with desire. He then buys any book about tennis and even spend hours on the internet to know more about tennis and how to play well. Adam also spend some time training and he also want to give a good match to his friend.

Days and months flew by and the time has now come to the big day. Both Adam and John are very confident to themselves especially John. He spends so many time to learn about tennis. Now he knows everything like a backhand, a powerful service, a smash and so on.

At the tennis court, Adam give John the honor to give the first service. John gives the first service and didn't make it to pass the net and he never did.

Same Goes To Online Business
The story on John is what most internet entrepreneurs today are facing. Internet business is like on-the-job training. What internet entrepreneurs usually do is they buy any product on how to start an online business but never did try to build one!

Imagine if a bodybuilder try to build muscle just by reading ways to do it but never goes to a gym. How can he build his muscle that way?

You may know every tips and tricks to build an online business but if you never start one, there is no way you will succeed. You can read tons of stuff but it will never work if you never apply the techniques.

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The Correct Way To Find Your Real Niche

Niche can be simply defined by "the calling of your life". It is important for us to find the right niche because that is what determine our business and to be successful in life. By identifying our own niche, we would probably doing what are we good at and be the best at it.

I don't quite agree with some internet marketing gurus that says create a website or a blog with a marketable niche to make profit. The best thing to do is determine your own niche that is profitable and marketable.

What will happen if you choose some random niche topic and try to build about it? It will fail miserably. If a niche is profitable but you are not the expert, how will you manage your business? It will be a disaster for you. It's like a soldier trying to teach you on how to farm. Would the soldier know anything about farming?

As I was searching for more information about niche on the internet, I came across a video on Youtube. I think the video was the best explanation on the correct way to find your real niche. And you don't have to fake your niche.

Another good thing about finding your real niche is that you will enjoy what are you doing. Remember what Robert Kiyosaki said, "mind your own business". Watch the video below for inspiration in finding your real niche.

p.s I don't have any personal gain showing you this video and I don't have any connection with the people involved with this video.

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How To Make Money With A Blog

How do bloggers make money? That is most want-to-be bloggers always ask. It seems that these people don't understand or not confident that blogging can make money. Well, basically blogging alone is not going to make some money. Bloggers have to monetize their blog to make some income.

Blogging is very popular in these days. There are millions of blogs online from around the world. Even well-established websites are starting to build their blog. That is because search engine love blogs and blogs contain keywords.

Here is a few examples on how to make money with a blog:

Image: Source

#1 PPC Advertising
PPC or Pay-Per-Click ads are the common method used by bloggers and the most popular is Google Adsense. There are other PPC ads that bloggers can put up on their blog like Nuffnang and Yahoo ads.

Bloggers make money when visitors click on those ads put up on their blog. How cool is that? But bloggers can't force anyone to click on ads. It must be on their free will. PPC advertising can be used by new anyone including new bloggers.

#2 Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is when bloggers sell someone else products and gain commision from it. The products can be physical or digital.

Affiliate marketing also can be used by anyone but the sell will be according to blog's traffic and how the blog can influence its readers.

#3 Paid Reviews
This is where the bloggers writing skills will be measured by cash! The famous paid review is by ReviewMe. The payments will be measured by traffic and writing skills. The higher the traffic, the higher the payment.

New blogs can't use this service. Blogs must be have good traffic and some subscribers. And most important, free domain like mine here is hard to be accepted. Bloggers must have paid domain name and some traffic to their blog.

#4 Ad Space Renting
If a blog have high traffic and quite a number of loyal subscribers, eventually, a few organizations will want to rent a space on the blog to advertise. However, bloggers also can ask for organizations if they are interested in renting a space in their blog.

This monetization method doesn't work with free domain name. Bloggers have to buy a domain name first to qualify.

#5 Blog Fliping
After getting tired with a blog, bloggers can sell it. Its called 'blog flipping'. Unused blogs can be advertised at Flippa.com to sell the blog. Blog price is according to the popularity of the blog and how much does the blog earn.

I don't recommend this style of monetization to bloggers with no IT skills. This method is best done by website developer or website designer. Its like buying an old house, repair it and sell with a higher price.

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Create Quality Content And Don't Lie

How many Google search results show you when you type "make money online"? Yes, billions of results. Which means they are millions of people who are trying to sell their products and services to you. And now you are asking yourself, is this product is for real? or is this a scam?

Sounds familiar to you? Well, read on.

I don't know if it's only me or anybody else but I always thought, did these people really make money online? In the basic learning of entrepreneurship, you have to learn from the best to become the best. If you want to be a chef, learn from a master chef, if you want to be a racer, learn from the champions and so on.

That is how entrepreneurs work. They work with the best. Did you ever come across with these sentences when googling around:

Image: An example of "Internet Millionaire"

#1 Earn $1000 A Day Doing Nothing!
#2 How I Made 6 Figure Income Monthly
#3 Sit Back and Relax While Watching Money Rolling In
#4 Earn Thousands While You Sleep
#5 How To Become A Millionaire Online ...and the list goes on..

Are you kidding me? What type of business is that? If it's not scamming you it's definitely teaching you to become a scammer. One other reason behind this is Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) and man, I really hate MLM.

This is certainly not about an online business. Even if it is, the person behind the website is not earning that so much money. There are about 85% of bloggers who didn't make any money online (read about it here). They didn't make any money but are trying to help you make money. How is that sounds to you?

Well, looking at the bright side, it is NOT impossible. Established internet marketer or internet entrepreneurs do make money while sleeping and lots of it. But for beginner, it is like a dream in a fantasy island.

Make money online is just an example. There are a lot of niche out there and they also did the same thing. Another example is the lose weight niche. I wonder what the person behind the website really looks like. I'm really dying to know, don't you?

Serious entrepreneurs make money with their product and they tell stories about their product in their blogs. That means, blog is only a platform for their business. But the 'other' people who copy the real entrepreneurs really don't make money. If they do, it is only fast cash.

Fast cash won't last forever. Today you scam a person, tomorrow you won't get any. Worst of all, you may land in jail for that. What people are really looking for is a passive income from the internet.

Quality Content From The Heart
Always remember that content is king. There is no doubt about it. That is why it is important for you to choose the right niche for your website. Don't just go and build a website with a niche that you don't really know about.

If you have money to spend, I guess its ok. You can find someone to write the content for you. By doing this, you can lose a lot of money just by providing the articles and you aren't certain about how much you will make.

Being an expert in your niche will save you a lot of time, money and energy. The best thing about this is you can answer questions from visitors by yourself because you already know about your niche. Be proud of what are you selling online.

Create your content with high quality. Write a few references if you have to. Gain trust from your readers. Nothing is more important than trust. How on earth are you going to sell anything if no one trusts you? You can also share your personal stories with your readers.

What to do:
#1 Write based on experience
#2 Only pay for articles that you don't really know
#3 Add reference for facts


No Lying
Be honest in your business. Even a brick and mortar business needs honesty. Honesty will be rewarded with trust. That is a good way to make attraction to your website.

Do not think that you can fool somebody to buy your product. This is the 21st century. Even a 12 year old knows what a scam is and what is not. Visitors who come to your blog are knowledgable people. You only make a fool of yourself if you are trying to lie.

You don't have to lie to sell your product. Every internet entrepreneurs starts from zero. Why should you be ashamed of it? If someone wants to buy, they will buy. You can't force someone to purchase something from you if they are not interested.

What to do:
#1 Don't put any figures at your website if it's too low (Facebook fan, money, readers etc)
#2 Don't lie for a product review
#3 You are your own content

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How To Setup An E-Commerce Website For Free

An ecommerce website is getting femes (famous) these days. In my hometown alone, there are a few hundreds of websites selling what they enjoyed most. But most of these websites are selling women's clothing and the person who owns the site is mostly women. This doesn't mean that men are not interested. Website owned by men is mostly children's wear, men accessories and men's wear. When I checked out some of the websites, I can conclude that 9 out of 10 are women owned website.

Image: Source
Wholesale and dropship concept

It is very easy to setup an ecommerce website and it only takes for about an hour to put the first few materials on your website. What gives the person who want to setup this kind of website a headache is where to get stuffs to sell.

I can't give specific information about where to get your stuffs because it is according to the country where do you reside. But I will give example from where Malaysian usually get their stuffs. Ok, let us get to business on how to start an ecommerce website for free.

Step 1:
First, determine where are you going to buy your stuffs for you to sell on your website. This part, it is all up to you but in my personal opinion, it is better to have your own product.

If you don't have any product to sell, get your stocks from China or be a dropship agent. China have the cheapest clothing line that you can sell on your website. What?! No money?! No problem. Register your name to another website for you to sell their product. Just like an affiliate program.

I only can remember one website for this program that is Cassafashion.com. Don't forget to raise your price a little bit for profit. This website is not an affiliate program. They sell clothes in wholesale which means you have to buy at least for RM200 to get your product.

If you don't plan on buying first, you can just bank in your money and leave it there (credit). You can use your credit later when you have customers buying from you. You also don't have to deliver the product yourself. You can tell to Cassafashion where you want them to deliver the product.

For an affiliate program, you can register at Zalora.com.my. Zalora use affiliate program and their products are not from China. They have multiple big brand choices and it ain't cheap.

List of suppliers:
http://www.wholesale-contacts.com - A mixture of wholesale and drop shippers. They have over 2000 suppliers detailed ready from around the world and a large product range. Including U.S, U.K, Europe and Asia.

http://www.electronixhq.com - Provides affilates and wholesale dropshipping for electronic products. They teach you how to get traffic to your website and provide SEO Pro Tools. Available around the world.

http://www.dropshipmanufacturerslist.com - Provides U.S based companies for wholesale dropshipping. (Note: I hate how their website looks like).

http://www.starttodayhomebusiness.com - Hate wholesellers and dropshippers? Import directly from China and other places. Have the profits all by yourself.

Step 2:
This is the easy part - Create your own ecommerce website. You can create your website for free using blogger.com. Create a gmail account and then you are good to go with blogger. I won't explain the details here because I believe many already know how to to this.

Besides the easy part, this is the most fun part because you finally have your own ecommerce website. Imagine having a business online. It is hard to open a physical store but you can build it for an hour online.

For free web hosting, you will have to do the purchase manually. It means your customer will email you or post a comment in your Facebook page. If you want your website to be automated, you have to use paid web hosting. If you don't know how to build an ecommerce website, you can learn about it slowly.

Step 3:
Create a Facebook Fan Page. This is quite important because this is the way that you want to tell your friends that you have something to sell. And by having a facebook page, your friends will be informed that you setup an online store.

Most ecommerce website owners target their friends and families first as their customers. Ask your friends to Like your page by sending them invites. This is why ecommerce are popular among women. Women tends to have many friends online and they have the same passion.

Friends will likely to buy something from you because they trust you and maybe they have known you for years. If they like your product, they will tell other friends to buy from you. That is what friends are for isn't it?

If you are a very social person online by having accounts here and there, you also can update your posts or tweets about your business. Use your imagination to expand your business. Social media are free, use them wisely.

Conclusion
That's it! It is easy to setup an ecommerce website. You don't have to be a genius in building a website. It is just like any other website but ecommerce sells directly to customers.

I know that for some people, building an ecommerce website is a big dream for them. That is why I am writing this article to give them an idea on how to start an ecommerce website.

More good news that I want to share here is that you actually can learn on how to do wholesale and dropshipping business. Like any other business, there is a strategy to sell dropship products.

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Can't Do Business With Mudah.my

In Malaysia, Mudah.my is very popular among Malaysians. It is like the second Ebay. What is more interesting that it is local and can be used by anyone. Like Ebay, Mudah is an e-commerce website where you place your ad and you can sell almost anything there. Like what the name carries, Mudah means 'easy' in Malay language. But lately, is it that 'easy' to put your ads up there?

I remember a few years back when I first use Mudah. It is quite easy to use and the ads are approved almost immediately and free of charge! If you want your ads to be always on the front page, you will have to pay a small fee.

It is a different story now. I don't even know when does their regulation changed. It is almost impossible to post an ad and get it approved by the admin/company. It started when a friend of mine who tries to sell their kittens.

At first, the ads is approved and the kittens' ad are live. Then the ads are taken down only after a few hours. It is still quite normal for that to happen. He thought maybe there are some keywords or images are not allowed for the ad.

Then, the Mudah people emailed him and ask him to register his email and send them a photocopy of his identity card with a watermark written "FOR MUDAH USE ONLY". Like a good boy, he did what was told. He was happy that his ads will soon be live because now he is so sure that everything will be fine.

The waiting period started. Day by day comes to months. No email reply, no calls, no shit. One day he comes to me and ask me about Mudah and I wonder, does such thing really happened? (I don't post anything on Mudah for a long time)

Feeling confused, I tried to check with other forums and websites who have the same problem with my friend. Then I realised that he is not alone. There are also other people who even get rejected by Mudah. There is one fellow on a forum says that his ads were taken off because he doesn't pay for it anymore. When he was using the free ad version, his ads were never listed.

I can see clearly now that the so-called free ads are not free. Like a famous quote we have in Malaysia saying "No money no talk". Any emails asking for their reply will also not be entertained.

Find other ecommerce website besides Mudah.my

Mudah.my risks
Like any other ecommerce website, Mudah also have risks. There are already many cases involving fraud ads. You can read all about it in the local newspapers. Customers are cheated off their money when they are trying to buy something that doesn't even exists.

So, it is understandable that Mudah wants a safe environment for their customers. Unsafe website will have negative effect to business doesn't it?

But what makes Mudah looks bad is, even after registration and sending a copy of a person's IC, the ads will still not being approved. What is the reason for sending the IC then?!


Solution
I really don't like the idea of sending a copy of my IC online to get my ads un-approved. It really shows that there are no profesionalisme in working ethics.

My suggestion is choose other ecommerce websites. There are many other good websites such as Lelong.com.my and Ebay Malaysia. I know that this situation is important to some internet entrepreneurs that uses e-commerce website.

In entrepreneurship, professionalism is important. Who wants to do business with a person or a company that is not serious in doing their job? Choose good business partners that you can work with. Don't jeopardize your business for a small matter.

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Impossible To Start Online Business With No Budget

Most new bloggers or internet marketers think that they are smart enough to build an empire of online business with no budget. This is not something that is astonishing to know because all internet marketers want to minimize their budget to maximize their profit. After all, that is what a business is supposed to be. Experienced internet marketers know this is not a smart strategy and everything comes with a budget.

I was among the foolish internet marketers back in the days. I thought that with almost everything is ready and free online, I can start an online business without any budget.

Everything needs payment. The computer, the internet connection is for starters. Online business can’t be performed without these basics. There will be some other price to pay when you are just getting started.

We are considered lucky to have free emails, free web hosting and free social networks. Learn to appreciate these free tools because everything else will be paid.

It is NOT truly impossible to startup with no budget. I can see two kinds of website on my Facebook page that uses free materials to build their online business. These two businesses use fashion as their niche and the other one ride on an ecommerce website called mudah.com.my which is very popular in Malaysia.

But using these techniques has their own consequences. I am not saying that these techniques are bad. In fact, it is a very good technique if it is done properly. Let us take a look at the examples.

The fashion blog

Some sample of the fashion blog

It is not actually a blog. These people use blogger.com as their web host and looks like a blog in their first impression. But when viewed carefully, it is actually an ecommerce website build using blogger.com.

These websites are decorated nicely (because it is about fashion) with girly stuff and are filled with clothes for sell.

When I first saw this website, I think it is creative and a genius work. Well, at least the site owner does something to earn money and not a lazy ass that just prefer to watch and do nothing!

The downturn of this kind of online business is they only can promote their stuffs for their friends online especially Facebook friends. It is much easier to sell stuffs to their own friends because their friends trust them and the stuffs sold are easier to deliver.

Another problem is it’s very hard to get customers even if their Facebook friends are really known to them. Not all people want to buy clothes every day. Some marketers waited up to six months to have a customer.

Your guess is as good as mine. Most of these online businesses didn't last very long. The main reason is very low customers are buying from them.

Selling on e-commerce website

This is something like selling products on ebay. In Malaysia, most people prefer Mudah because it is a local e-commerce site. As we all know, this is also a type of online business.

When people use Mudah, they sell mostly their own items or stuffs. It can be used or brand new. Used stuffs are still valuable in Malaysia because not all people afford to buy new property.

Again, the downturn is the low volume of customers who wants to buy the product. What these people do is, they post their item online and wait for a miracle to happen.

Fraud cases are also happening in Mudah. This makes things worse for an online business because it can scare the customers away. 

Morale of the story

Yes, these online businesses can make money but cannot make a living with it. The idea is great but going cheap or free is making it difficult. The thought of trying to outsmart the online business system is a bad thing to think about.

You really need some budget to get your online business going and running. It is hard to compete with the big boys but you don't have to do that. Who are we when thinking to compete with Adidas, Nike, Coca-Cola and KFC. Don’t compete, create a new one.

If you think you still can outsmart the online business system, well think again. Below is the list of things to do when starting an online business WITH budget.

1. Web Hosting

2. Domain purchase

3. Web design

4. Email autoresponders

5. Marketing/Advertisements

These are the basics. If you have the specialty, you can skip web design. Free web hosting can be considered but that is how far you can go. Read back the fashion blog story. It will take you nowhere when trying free stuffs for your online business.

Conclusion

Don't be a cheapskate in building an online business. We are trying to make money with money. Some services are free and good to use but some are not. Stop feeling skeptical about purchasing online products.

To learn blogging, for example, you need the information. You buy books about blogging. Some of the books or information you need can only be purchased online. That is how you invest. I know you have the budget but most of you are afraid to spend it even if it is for your own good.

It is understandable that some of us are budget tight but think this as an investment. It is your online business anyway, not mine or someone else. No one will profit from it besides you.  

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Why Traffic is Important To A Website

In the process of learning to build an online business or some people called it internet entrepreneurship, we will come across with what most bloggers are talking about, TRAFFIC. Traffic craze will make any blogger to do anything to promote their blog or website. However, there are some small percentage of bloggers don't mind about how much traffic came in. They just love to blog as much as they wanted to.

What is Traffic? Why is it important? These are some of the questions that many new bloggers have in mind. New bloggers have different things in mind. They concentrate on how to build the website first without minding on other things such as the content, traffic, design and so on.

It is a normal thing if bloggers don't think about traffic at first but don't make it a habit in the next blog project. That is why blogging gurus tell people to make a plan before started blogging. Make a plan starting from scrap until when the website is done and running. Then, concentrate on how to maintain the website.

Traffic are the people who come or visitors to a website. It has the same concept as the physical store. Imagine that your website or blog just like a supermarket. If nobody comes to your store, that means no buyer. The only difference is, a website or a blog receive people from the internet, virtually. That is why traffic is important. Remember that no traffic, no buyer.

Image: Source

Not all traffic are good or have the QUALITY (blogging language). Traffic comes from many parts in the internet such as the search engine, social website, forum, email and so on. It depends on how people promote their website. Now you have the idea why some websites have huge traffic but have small income.

What a website really need is quality traffic. Now comes the question, what is quality traffic? A simple answer is hungry buyers. These kind of people need the things that you sell. They not only come to do window shopping. Well, window shopping is not a bad thing because who knows that these people will turn to customers.

In some websites, they teach people to filter their traffic. That means, they are trying to avoid bad traffic to their website. In this case, they already have a huge amount of traffic everyday and they need to remove some of them. Why are they doing this? Because bad traffic also can mean that they are spammers, bots, thieves and many others that can ruin a website, especially their business.

If you have a business online and have a small amount of traffic each day, consider to build a blog. Blog are very good for SEO (search engine optimization) because it contain articles. People use words to search on the search engine and articles contains words, so many of them. You can get free traffic to your website using a blog.

In other ways, if you have the budget, you can buy traffic to your website. One popular way to do this is through PPC (pay per click) advertisements like Google Adword. But there are other ways you can do to buy traffic. You can choose any other ways to suit your taste.

Conclusion
No matter what kind of business people do on the internet, traffic is very important. No matter how, free or paid, get more traffic to your website. Traffic will increase sales on your page. If the traffic is not interested, they can tell their friends to visit your website. Word of mouth is a very powerful tool because people trust their friend more than your website.

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Internet Business: Do it or Don’t do it

With internet on your fingertips, you are planning to make a living out of it. You started an online business in just one day. The next day when you wake up, voila!! Money is rolling like a tsunami to your bank account….NOT. These are what most people think now. Easy, cheap and fast internet makes so many opportunities for people to do their business online.

When the internet was introduced, e-businesses were started by physical stores and premises. They placed their advertisements online and they also sell their products online. This is because everyone can access the internet from the comfort of their home. People don’t need to go out to shop anymore and this is a trend to the urban areas. A simple few clicks on the e-stores is enough for shopping.

Image: source

Today, the e-business can be started by anyone. There are a lot of opportunities to do business online and the best thing is you don’t have to get a license to build your online store. Even if you don’t have your own product, you still can sell other people’s product and gain commission from the sold items. A few examples of popular money-making business online are:

1. Blogging
2. Affiliate marketing
3. E-commerce
4. Arts & craft
5. Auction selling

However in reality, e-business is not a get-rich-quick scheme. Like physical business, it also needs patience and perseverance. For example, a blogger need at least a year to get their first dollar. But it is a different story for a well-known physical business who builds their website online. They already have their own loyal customers and wherever they go, the customers will follow. This goes for business with big brands such as sports brand or a local newspaper. As you can see here, even e-business needs to be advertised and have got to be well-known. Now let us view the few examples of e-business that you can do it online.

Blogging

A blog is actually a website. A person who writes blogs is called a blogger. It is a website that contains articles which is everyone will read for information. One example of a blog is http://www.malaysia-today.net/. This is a blog about politics in Malaysia.

How is this being a business?

You can earn from advertising on your blog. The most popular advertising is from Google AdSense. You will be paid from Google if visitors to your blog click on their advertisement. If your blog is popular enough, other organizations will pay you if you placed their ads on your blog. It’s like renting a place for their ads.

Affiliate marketing

This is when I said you sell other people’s products. You will get paid by commissions. You help the organization to advertise their products through a special link that contains your information. This is how the organization knows who is selling the products and the commission will go to that particular person. Usually people make their advertisements through Pay Per Click (PPC). This PPC is what you see on Google AdSense. One famous affiliate marketing company is amazon.com.

E-commerce

An e-commerce website looks like ebay.com and amazon.com website. You will build a website looking like that with your own products listed. If you don’t have any product, other people also can sell their products in your website like mudah.com.my.

Arts & crafts

This is when creativity really comes to the topic. If you are good with something, let say origami, you can sell your origami online. Make your product looks different from the others. The more unique your product is, the more sells it will make. But this kind of e-business is quite rare because not all of us can do arts or crafts.

Auction selling

So you have your product but you don’t have a website. This is not a problem anymore. You can sell it at ebay.com or mudah.com.my. Building your own little-known e-commerce website can be frustrating and it takes a lot of your time. The well-known website is a stepping stone for some people who want to sell their products fast.

So guys, the above are some example of e-business that you can do to make real money on the internet. You can choose which one that suits your interest. If you are the person who wants fast cash or cannot be patient, it is not the business that you need. You better don’t do it or it will be just a waste of time for you. Time is really precious for us. For anyone who is interested, well, I wish you all good luck and have patience..a lot of it..

Article by:
Albert Babok
2010975805

Reference:

October 2009. Top 10 Internet Home Business Ideas You Can Start and Run in Your Underwear. Retrieved from http://www.sparkplugging.com/sparkplug-ceo/top-10-internet-home-businesses-ideas-you-can-start-and-run-in-your-underwear/.

Shaw, E. (11 August 2007). How to start your own internet business. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/money/how-to-start-your-own-internet-business-461031.html.

Basic Internet Business Ideas for Beginners. Retrieved from http://www.aha-business-ideas.com/internetbusinessideas.html.

How do internet businesses work?. Retrieved from http://www.worldpay.com/onlinetrading/index.php?page=explain&sub=how.

Chan, P. (21 February 2013). The Internet Marketing Epiphany. Retrieved from http://patricchan.com/232/the-epiphany/#axzz2NDYaxwN5.

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