rayforrest

2009-08-20T12:13:00.001-07:00

How To Start An Online Business - New Video-->http://bit.ly/Ke6zW

Best Products For Starting An Online Business

2009-08-20T06:19:00.001-07:00

(My Original Blog Post: http://www.rayforrest.com/315/how-to-start-an-online-business-video-7/)

As you begin the process of starting an online business you will be faced with information overload as you sort through the myriad of available products, software and services for the Internet entrepreneur. In this video I recommend several "must-have" products that you will need to start your online business and get up and running.

Starting An Online Business? Find Out How Much Money You Can Really Make...

2009-08-19T14:41:00.001-07:00

(My Original Blog Post: http://www.rayforrest.com/313/how-to-start-an-online-business-video-6/)
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So you want to start an online business and your asking yourself, "How much can I REALLY make online?" Am I going to make $1,257 a day like that ad I saw pop-up on my screen or am I just going to make an easy $10K a month working 4 hours a week. Does any of this sound familiar? Get some real advice on how much you can expect to make as you go down the path of investigating the facts around how to start an internet business.

How Much Does It Cost To Start An Online Business?

2009-08-19T14:19:00.001-07:00

(My Original Blog Post: http://www.rayforrest.com/308/how-to-start-an-online-business-video-5/)

If you want to know how to start an online business one if the things you may be asking your self is, "how much is this going to cost me?" In this video I provide some guidance on how much you should be spending and on what.

How To Determine Market Demand For Your Online Business

2009-08-18T12:47:00.001-07:00

(My Original Blog Post: http://www.rayforrest.com/300/how-to-start-an-online-business-video-4/)

If you are learning about how to start an online business then one thing you will need to understand is market research. How to understand demand and what people want. If you do not have a good understanding of demand you could end up wasting your time either marketing a product that know one wants or just as bad, trying to compete in an over-crowded and highly competitive market. This video will give you some ideas about determining demand. Keep in mind the ideas I offer here are very high level and for beginners. There are much more targeted methods for determining demand using different software tools and processes.

How To Select A Product For Your Online Business

2009-08-18T11:49:00.001-07:00

(My Original Blog Post: http://www.rayforrest.com/294/how-to-start-an-online-business-video-3/)

If you are starting an online business you need to find a product that you can get excited about! Who wants to sell something they would never use themselves? In this video I provide ideas on how to select a product and where to find stuff you can sell for your new home based online business.

How To Get Help Starting An Online Business

2009-08-18T10:01:00.001-07:00

(My Original Blog Post: http://www.rayforrest.com/289/how-to-start-an-online-business-video2/)

In this video you will get information on how you can get free help with starting an online business. As with any new endeavor it is always a good idea to work with a coach or mentor. This way you can leverage the experience of others that have passed before you. By leveraging a coach or mentor or at the very least studying people that have had success in the area that you want to get into it will give you ideas you can use with your own business. Learn from these people and study what they do. And if there is room to improve upon it (which there almost always is) then you can put your own stamp on it. If your considering starting an online business here are the names is some of the more successful people out on the web today:

Jack Humphrey - Blogger and social media expert. Owner of several websites including The Friday Traffic Report and a membership site called BlogSuccess.

Mike Dillard - Network Marketer, Affiliate Marketer and overall online success. Mike creates excellent content, training materials and offers high quality products for re-sale as an affiliate. If you are considering building a Network Marketing business online or offline then you should definitely consider some of Mike's products.

Frank Kern - Internet Marketing guru and product launch expert. Frank is responsible for some of the largest product launches in the make money online crowd. He's associated with all of the major players and has knack for developing interest and desire in a market and then turning that into cold hard cash.

These are just a couple of names to get you started. Pick one that you like, read some of there material, learn and enjoy!

How To Get Help Starting An Online Business Video #2

2009-08-07T11:09:00.001-07:00

(My Original Blog Post: http://www.rayforrest.com/289/how-to-get-help-starting-an-online-business-video-2/)

In this video you will get information on how you can get free help with starting your own online business.

How To Start An Online Business-Video #1

2009-08-07T09:32:00.001-07:00

(My Original Blog Post: http://www.rayforrest.com/282/how-to-start-an-online-business-video-1/)

Services

2009-07-28T06:08:00.001-07:00

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/4ZmX4)

Coaching Services

Coaching services are one on one sessions where you will work directly with myself or one of my associates to get you started with your online business. Sessions are 30-60 minutes once per week. During these sessions we will work with you to define and execute your business plan. In essence we are going to help you with understanding both "what to do" and "how to do it." We will also give you access to our personal team of resources to help with things such as building websites, graphics and setting up campaigns.

Initial phone conversations are free of charge. Subsequent calls are Fee based and $125/30 minutes.

Internet Marketing

Internet Marketing tends to be an all encompassing term used to quantify many different aspects of promoting "stuff" on the web. We work with clients to help them market their products and/or services using many different mediums including:

Article Writing - Writing and distributing content using across article networks.

Banner Advertising - Creating banners and distributing across content networks.

Blogging - Set up of blog platform with hosting. Blogging strategy ie; how to monetize your blog and drive traffic that pays.

Email Marketing - Setup and creation of campaigns.

Press Releases - Creation and distribution of press releases.

PPC - Setting up and managing campaigns. Key word selection. Landing page optimization.

Ezines - Selecting e-zines and targeted mailing lists to distribute content through.

Social Media - Selecting social media sites, profile set-up and content creation.

Video - Defining your video strategy and then distributing your content across 30+ video sites including YouTube.

Network Marketing

Many people promote MLM products and build large businesses using the web. I currently promote two health and wellness related products online. If you are interested in starting an online business by promoting one of the products I currently sell then we can discuss getting you started. We will show you how to market the products and bring people into your organization. Services include:

Enrollment

Training

List Building

Internet Marketing - All services covered under this section

Social Media - All services covered under this section

Social Media

Social Media and Social Networking derserve a category set aside just for them alone. With all the Buzz out there around this topic if I didn't have a category set aside people would think I don't know what the hell I am doing ;-)

Although there is certainly cross-over between the activities covered under Internet Marketing, there is much to know about "How" and "How Not" to use Social Media as a method to branding and eventually selling "stuff" on the Internet. Here is how we help clients leverage Social Media:

Strategy - Developing a plan and process for utilizing social media. Selecting the social sites to be used supporting your branding and campaign efforts.

Creation - Creating your "social properties" on the web. This can include profile setup and administration. We will help you understand which social sites to place your content and why we select these particular sites.

Execution - Developing a plan and process that "directs" your fans / potential customers from one social site to the next.

My Top 10 Social Media Sites

2009-07-21T10:44:00.001-07:00

(My Original Blog Post: http://www.rayforrest.com/201/my-top-10-social-media-sites/)

There are literally hundreds of Web2.0 and Social Media sites out there and more are being developed every day. These sites are interactive and let the users and the communities within in them contribute and publish content for the world to see. Most of the sites offer you the ability to rate, share and discuss the content with other users giving it the ability to make content "go viral" across the web when you have tons of people all raving about a particular piece of content at the same time and sharing it with others. And with all of these sites content is grouped and categorized by popular interests such as "health & fitness" or "finance" allowing users to easily find content that is specific to their search. Why is this important...well if you are trying to drive traffic around a specific group of keywords, these social media sites are highly regarded and have the "google juice" necessary to get you some high quality backlinks and push you further up in the search rankings.

The list is subjective and based on research from a number of sources including: stompernet, quantcast and alexa ratings. So here we go....

Social Media Sites

#1 YouTube - www.youtube.com

Nothing beats video. I recently saw a statistic that boasted that over 50% of all the content on the web is now video. That is an amazing statistic. There are a lot of people that shy away from video as part of their marketing and SEO efforts. So that means its an opportunity and something you can use to your advantage. So get out there and make a short video of whatever it is you are doing and get it online. Stats: 72M visitors per month. Page Rank: 6.

#2 Blogger - www.blogger.com

Blogger.com has quickly become the free blogging platform of choice. Google owns it (no surprise there). Its free to sign up and start creating content that quickly gets indexed and viewed on the web. Want to be seen...put your content on blogger. Stats: 20.1M people per month. Page Rank: 32

#3 Twitter - www.twitter.com

If you haven't heard of twitter then please continue to stay under that rock that you've been living under. Yes, everyone uses twitter from politicians to pop stars and athletes. For a low-cal diet of micro blogging and pointing people to more substantial content this is the place to be. Stats: 26.5M people per month. Page Rank 25.

#4 Wordpress.com - www.wordpress.com

This is a free blogging platform that is a favorite amongst the people. Made for the people, by the people. This opensource platform has tons of great functionality and content from the wordpress network of blogs is picked up all over the web from other sites such as google and facebook. Stats: 188.6M people per month (across all published blogs). Page Rank 11.

#5 DIGG - www.digg.com

Digg is the social media and bookmarking site on the web. Its a great place to be seen and heard. The site lets users share and promote content from anywhere on the web and google loves it...need I say more. Stats: 28.2M people per month. Page Rank: 53.

#6 Hubpages - www.hubpages.com

Hubpages is a leading online publishing platform with an active community and easy to use tools for content creation. With an engaged and active community you have the opportunity to leverage this social media site to drive traffic and rank in search engines. They also like to make it easy for you to monetize your content. Stats: 13M people per month. Page Rank 125.

#7 Squidoo - www.squidoo.com

Basically the same as Hubpages. If your an expert then you can place your content HERE. Squidoo lets you create a "lens" (there term for an article of piece of content) for the world to see. They have a user friendly format for building a lens using different types of content such as text, video and graphics and pulling it all together. And of course the more positive reviews you get the higher your rankings. Stats: 10.2M people per month. Page Rank: 166.

#8 Zimbio - www.zimbio.com

Zimbio is one of the fastest growing online magazines and social media sites. They boast over 18M readers per month. The site tends to focus on the hyper-active pop culture segment which includes entertainment, style and current events. However they do not limit their content to these categories and as a marketer you can submit your blog relative to your niche and they will include your content on their site, as long as it is good ;-) Stats: 18M people per month. Page Rank: 107.

#9 Wetpaint - www.wetpaint.com

Wetpaint is a fast growing social media site that promotes users, companies or anyone for that matter promote their brand by building community sites that are engaging and interactive. You can set up a community and let the users post content to keep them coming back for more. Stats: 6.4M people per month. Page Rank: 1,329

#10 Propeller - www.propeller.com

Propeller is AOL's social media/news and bookmarking site. Its very easy to submit your site or article and content ranks well in the search engines. Unfortunately their traffic has been declining. Keep an eye on this one. But for now it's a "must" use social media site for creating backlinks and SEM. Stats: 500K people per month. Page Rank: 3,533

I hope you like this list of sites to use as part of your online advertising strategy. Now I have a special bonus for those of you that read this entire article. You can get a FREE report on how to MONETIZE SOCIAL MEDIA . This report was created by Perry Belcher who has been killing it in the social media space. Enjoy....Ray

The Work From Home Online Report

2009-06-20T11:02:00.000-07:00

For the past 11 years I have been able to work from home in some capacity. That’s not to say that I don’t leave my home to work but my main office is my home office and I’d like to keep it that way. There is a steady trend towards working from home and it’s evident by the sheer numbers. In 1997 the U. S. Census Bureau estimated approximately 11 million people worked from home in some capacity. Let’s fast forward to the 2004 U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistic Work At Home Summary. It reports that some 20.7 million people did some work at home as part of their job or own home based business. Here are my top 7 reasons for working at home:

1. You are more productive and get more done (if you have the discipline).
2. You don’t waste time commuting to the office.
3. You spend less time at the “water cooler” and office socializing.
4. It’s the “green” thing to do. You consume less fuel and energy needed for commuting thus less carbon emissions.
5. Flexibility. You get to work your own hours and from your location of choice.
6. Work / Life Balance….this is an important one. We all need time to take care of our own business and family. Working from home lets you take care of a lot of those little things that can slip if your office day is 12 hours long including commute time.
7. And most of all Happiness….I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that people that work from home are generally 100 times happier about their work situation than those people that absolutely cannot work from home ;)

Now, don’t get me wrong. There is significant value in going into the office. Out of site, out of mind is a real thing and in most situations face to face communications is the most effective way to get your point across. But you’ve got to balance this out across the benefits of having the option to work from home. Ideally you have a situation where your employer offers you the flexibility to work from home 1-2 days a week while also putting in some office time to make sure they don’t forget who you are. That’s all for now…I’m gonna grab my surfboard and head out to “lunch.”

For more information on how you can start your own work from home online business you can go to http://www.rayforrest.com/work-from-home/

Why Does Everyone Want To Work From Home?

2009-06-15T18:50:00.001-07:00

I've been working from my home in some capacity for over the past years and I plan on doing the same for many years to come. The flexibility and freedom you gain by being able to work at home is a great benefit. For more on this topic you can check out my recent blog post about 10 Great Reasons to Work From Home.