Profit from Public Domain Material and Private Label Rights

Another area that is very popular at the moment in the area of work at home online opportunities is the area of public domain and private label rights materials. These materials can be used in a number of different ways and can earn you money if you know how to go about it and learn as much as you can about internet marketing and how to sell a product online or how to create a successful Adsense website.

The first way that private label rights and public domain material are often used is to sell information products. An important point here is to change the information to be your own. Unless the public domain material is a classic book and you are marketing it as such, under the author's name, then rather change the material. You can alter the material in a number of ways - re-write the ebook, turn the information into a course, turn it into an audio product, or add some value to it in another way. If you are one of thousands trying to sell the same material without adding any value to the product then the chances are you will not make money from it.

Another way private label rights and public domain material are used is to create Adsense sites. Once again, re-write the articles or re-write the information contained in the public domain material to be your own. If you are using public domain material, you should also optimize the content for search engines when turning it into an Adsense website.

You can profit from public domain material and private label rights but use this material to create your own product, then learn as much as you can about internet marketing and how to sell these products online or how to create a successful Adsense website. It is also important before using any material considered to be in the public domain that you check whether it really is public domain material or you could find yourself with serious legal problems.

eBay - Can you be an eBay seller?

eBay is one of the largest and most popular websites on the internet today. Besides being the largest internet auction website, many people are turning to this website to start their own businesses based purely on eBay selling. Is it possible to do this? What do you need to know if you are truly going to make a success of your eBay business?

The first thing is that you have to accept Paypal or have another way of accepting credit cards online. This is something which is seldom mentioned but try running an eBay business without this and you could find yourself in serious trouble. Most eBay users use Paypal for their online transactions and will be looking for the quickest transaction - this means that they are more than likely not going to want a vendor that only accepts checks or money orders. If you are not able to accept Paypal and do not have another merchant account then it is highly inadvisable to take this route for your business.

If you do accept Paypal and decide that eBay is the business for you then you should start by doing thorough market research. Your market research should include investigating eBay's Hot Items report to see what items you are able to sell from this report, look at the categories where you will be selling your products and see what other people have to offer in this category and how much it is selling for.

When setting up your eBay advert you should aim for some kind of branding across your ads so that people begin to link your ads with you and with your customer feedback. If your customers are satisfied with your service and they recognize your branding then they will be more likely to buy from you again. Learn to use HTML if you do not already know and use this wisely in your ads to create the best looking sales page you can. You should also include at least one photo in your sales page, or if you can't use a photo then find some clip art or an image that relates to what you are selling to make the page visually appealing.

Provide good customer service - answer your customers questions immediately, as soon as a bid closes send the winning bidder an email, post the item as soon as possible and use tracking services to ensure that your parcel reaches your customer. Remember the more you give your customer in terms of service the more likely they are to purchase more from you.

Market your eBay business in the same way as you would market any other internet business - take note of your eBay store URL or the search results page for items being sold by you and link to this with article marketing, forum marketing, link exchanges, etc. Create business cards to hand out to people and do whatever other form of marketing you can. Never link to a product page though as these will constantly be changing.

In conclusion, eBay can provide many advantages if you are looking at starting an internet business due to its incredible popularity and the relative ease of running this business. It is important to realize however that in order to make a success of eBay you need to accept Paypal or have another good merchant account that can accept credit cards online. If you do start an eBay business then start with thorough market research, create great looking ads and brand them, follow up with excellent customer service and market your eBay business in the same way as you would market any other internet business.

Pros and Cons of Affiliate Marketing

One of the business ideas that many people look at in internet marketing is affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing can be a genuine business opportunity but there are a number of things that one should know before going into this field. As a ghostwriter specializing in internet marketing subjects I have thoroughly researched this subject, I have tried to sell affiliate products myself and now I want to teach you the pros and cons of affiliate marketing.

Firstly, it is not as easy as they make it sound. If you have been duped into believing that all you do is market someone else's website and that you will make millions then think again. in order to make even a liveable wage from affiliate marketing there is a lot more that you need to do then simply put someone else's webpage on a couple of traffic exchanges, display a few banner ads and maybe write one or two articles. Affiliate marketing takes work and lots of it but if you are prepared to treat it like a business and really work at it and learn as much as you can then you can make money.

Secondly, if you are going to make money from affiliate marketing you have to have your own website or blog. Many affiliate marketers simply advertise their affiliate link and hope that that will make them money. This is dangerous for a number of reasons - firstly, you do not build relationships with your clients and so will not be able to contact them to advertise future products they may be interested in; secondly, it is very easy for people to just remove the affiliate part of the URL and so prevent you getting your commission. If you are going to be advertising affiliate products then make sure that you have a blog or website, some way of keeping in touch with your clients and that affiliate links are hidden so that people cannot steal your commission.

Another VERY important point is that if you want to make money from affiliate marketing your affiliate URL needs to be right near the top of the search engine pages. If your affiliate URL is not on the search engines or if it is so far down the listings that no one ever sees it then this is not going to do you any good. When people come to the internet for information almost invariably they will use search engines to find what they are looking for. They will also probably not go through too many pages of search engine listings to find what they are looking for, so you need to be on the first page or two of listings (and preferably the first).

In order to get your affiliate URL listed near the top of the search engines you have a couple of choices - the first is to write a very highly search engine optimized article which you can put on Ezinearticles.com. The second option is that you can use PPC campaigns. If you are working on search engine optimization then you should try to ensure that the keywords you are targeting have a minimal number of competing pages. The more pages competing for the same keywords the less likely your article is to show up. Your website or blog should also be optimized for these keywords.

So far I have probably made affiliate marketing sound very hard (unless you are an expert at search engine optimization and internet marketing). Still, there are benefits to affiliate marketing if you are prepared to work at it. Affiliate marketing means that you do not need to stock any products of your own. It also means that you don't need to worry about taking payment, order fulfillment or many other problems associated with owning your own business.

The important thing to realize is that although affiliate marketing is a genuine home based business opportunity, it is not an easy one. You are going to need to become an expert in this field if it is one that you choose to do - you need to have your own website or blog to advertise your affiliate products and you need to become an expert at choosing the correct keywords and optimizing your articles and webpages for these keywords. If you are not going to work hard at this business opportunity then it's not really worth it.

How I work from Home

For many years it was my dream to work from home. I started out working for a number of companies and NGO's mainly in administrative functions such as secretary, receptionist, fundraising assistant/grant writer, bookkeeper as well as various other job descriptions but it was always my desire to work from home.

I looked into a number of work from home business opportunities but most turned out to be scams or just would not make enough money to actually live on. I also tried to start a number of my own businesses which I will discuss in other blog posts, although these have worked for others, they did not really work long term for me.

At long last I stumbled upon my ideal way of working from home - freelance writing. I have always had a passion for writing but never really knew how to go about it. Then I came across Elance and their writing division. I saw how it could work and so I decided to give it a try. I actually started while I was on leave for a month and by the time I came back to work I was ready to hand in my resignation and resign the next month.

Work has been up and down, no doubt, and if I had to do it again I probably would wait a bit longer before quiting my day job but the potential is definitely there and I have already more than paid back all my monthly membership fees.

If you want to work from home then I strongly urge you to consider Elance. They have a number of different opportunities from writing, web design, administrative, legal, and dozens of opportunities. You join a particular section where you have the necessary skills and there is a monthly/quarterly or annual cost but as I say, this can easily be made back. From my experience with this freelance jobs board I can really recommend it.