Investing in your online business and linking your sites by Richard Grady

Hi Folks!

Invest in your business

It is a fact that it is possible to set up an Internet business for next to nothing (in fact, I started my first Internet business for about Ł50/$75!), but that doesn't mean that you MUST start it with nothing.

People are always asking me where they can get free software or free this or that and if I can help then I will, but the free solution is not always the best one. (In fact, it is rarely the best one!)

Think of it like this, if you wanted to start a new offline business - a retail store for example, you would expect to have to spend several thousand dollars/pounds setting things up. Now with an Internet business, you could buy all of the software you need and pay for some top quality services to help your business and still have change from a few hundred dollars/pounds.

Don't get me wrong, I am as guilty as everyone else - I don't tend to dive in and purchase products without a good deal of research/testing etc. However once I have made the investment, I nearly always say to myself, 'I wish I had bought that sooner'.

Good quality products (software or services) will save you time and money and can deal with a huge amount of work on your behalf. In comparison to starting a business in the offline world, starting a business on the Internet is incredibly affordable, even if you do have to spend a few hundred when you are starting out.

Remember, a small investment in your business can reap considerably larger rewards :-)

Link your sites

As I have said before, in my opinion, one of the best ways to set up your Internet business is by having lots of smaller websites bringing in income rather than one 'big' one. The main benefit is obvious, if you have ten sites all earning you a living and one day one of them stops, you still have the other nine to fall back on. If you only have one site to start with, well that's another story.

So let's assume you take my advice and over time you build up a portfolio
of websites. There is a good chance that each site will be loosely related
in terms of the products/services offered (this is only natural - often one profitable website idea leads to another, similar idea).

Each website is unique and assuming you have done things correctly, will be pulling traffic from various sources. This means that if a customer lands
on one of your websites that he/she found in a search engine, they may
not necessarily find any of your other sites (don't assume that your
customers are going to start researching you and your site to see what
other online businesses you own - they won't).

Therefore, in order that you don't 'waste' your traffic, you need to give
every customer the opportunity of seeing everything that you have to offer. Site A may not be exactly what they were looking for but site B
may be perfect.

What I am saying is, don't treat each website as an 'island'. Ensure that you have high-profile links to your other sites. Mention your other sites in your newsletters or autoresponder messages. If you sell eBooks, put a link to EVERY site you own in your eBooks rather than just the site that you sell the eBook from.

This stuff may seem obvious but I regularly see websites that have related sites owned by the same person and there is nothing that links visitors from one to the other (I know this because I am one of the few people that does do research into what other sites are owned by online marketers).

Linking to your own sites may also have a positive effect on link popularity, which in turn may help your search engine listings but this isn't the main reason I tell you to do this.

The main reason is simply that getting a visitor to your website is hard work. Don't waste your chance to convert them into a customer when they get there. Take the time to show them your 'wares' and if they don't find what they are looking for, point them in the direction of another of
your sites where they might.

Online auction image hosting

If you sell on online auctions such as eBay, then it is likely that you use photographs of your items for sale in your auction descriptions. Whilst there are several ways of storing these images online for the duration of your auction, most people tend to use the eBay photo service or another third-party service.

My online colleague Nick James (developer of Auction-O-Matic) has recently launched a brand new image hosting service specifically for online auction sellers and the services and price that Nick is offering are superb when compared to the alternatives.

Check out ImageStorePro for yourself at: http://www.thetraderonline.com/imagestore.html

Until next time....

Richard Grady
www.thetraderonline.com