There is a funny mindset amongst some internet entrepreneurs and marketers that things online should be free. And this affects their businesses. Many people are drawn to the notion of free traffic to your website. Now, there are a few ways of get "organic" or "search" traffic and certainly it is nice when it happens but how does this come into play in a business model?

There are a few built-in downsides to the idea of free traffic. One is that it normally takes some time to build up. SEO or Search Engine Optimization can take months to produce results. First you have to put up your site, make changes, wait for results and repeat. Sounds easy enough but the search engines take time to produce the results and this whole process could take 3-6 months. Now depending on the purpose of your website, this might be acceptable, but if you are running a real business, you are sitting there loosing potential revenue as you wait around for your "free" traffic.

Let's compare that to paid traffic. Now understand that there are a number of sources of paid traffic available. You could buy advertising through Google Adwords on a Pay Per Click (PPC) basis, you can buy advertising on blogs or a lot of sites that get a good volume of traffic. Often these are based on the number of visitors such a site receives. You can buy advertising in online newsletters or ezines and so on. But, there are some distinct advantages to paid advertising.

First, you are in control of it. You can turn it on and off at will. Flip the switch (start paying for ads) and traffic comes in. Turn off the switch (pull the ads) and traffic stops. When you are ready to handle more sales, you turn up the volume of ads going out. No problem. When you are relying on free traffic, it can be unpredictable and not the best business model.

Secondly, with paid advertising, you can track your ads very easily. You know which ad or publication someone come to you from, you can get a good idea of what they searched for and what is going to interest them. This knowledge can help you build a better product or service because you can learn to target your customer better. When you are running a proper business, this information is very valuable to you because the better you can tailor your product or service to your customer, the more effectively you can market it.

I guess the biggest problem that people have is that they don't have a good plan or do proper testing before they get started. See, if you have a product or service that sells for X dollars, you need to know how much money you can spend to acquire a sale for it. Then you need to look over your conversion rates and how to improve them. See, a lot of people think that more traffic can solve their problem and boost sales. Well it can. But a more compelling offer and a better converting site can do it faster and cheaper. If you start at the beginning of the sales process and increase the conversions from surfers to clickers, from ad views to sales letter reads, from sales letter reads to sales, if each of these steps is slightly improved, then you start to see an exponential growth in sales for the same amount of traffic or the same number of visitors.

Once your site or sales letter converts traffic to dollars like a well-oiled machine, then turn up the traffic. Now you can go and pay for ads to get the word out. And when people find you online through an organic search, that is a bonus. But don't waste your time sitting there waiting for it.

Jonathan Hook teaches businesses how to consistently and predictably increase profits through implementation of a proven marketing system at TheMarketersMind.com

Well for some of us blogging is just about passing time and writing something on a webpage that is of interest to us. Most of us use blogs as a tool for self expression, to make new friends or discuss any issue. But is this all that blogging is about? Well there’s much more that a blog can do for you. A blog can help to increase your sales and improve your relationship with your clients tremendously, which ultimately again leads to massive increase in sales and profits.So how does it help in improving your brand value, sales, product quality and client-company relationship? Well we’ll share it with you here. Blogs are great marketing tools and when used effectively can attract a lot of potential customers.

Imagine you are running a small fashion house and you have developed some new designs that you are not sure whether people are going to like them or not. What do you do? You’ll go and show them to some of your closest friends but not many people for the fear of word spreading out that you have produced such and such designs. But with blogs there’s a way out. You can put snaps of some of those designs on a blog and then invite people from different walks of life to check them out and give feedbacks on the designs. Such people can be easily found at the various fashion and clothing related online forums. You don’t even have to reveal your name or company’s name till you feel comfortable. This is one of the best ways to get the most genuine feedbacks about your products.

Blogs also offer a great way to improve your product quality. A certain Swiss lock-maker found that their sales were on a constant decline despite increasing demand and was desperate to know what was wrong with his latest designs. The lock-maker started a blog where he informed people about the high quality of metal used and the latest technology that he was using in manufacturing the locks. People accepted everything but everyone on the blog left a feedback which shocked the lock-maker and brought to light real cause of plummeting sales, the key to the lock. The key being supplied with the new locks way too small for comfort and often got bent after a few months of regular use. The company immediately changed the key specs and all the faulty locks and ensured that its reputation was kept intact.

Blogs are a great way to also improve relationship with your clients and also to make sure that they remain loyal to your brand. Blogs are a great way to also tell people what all they can do with your product. Several small software firms do that because often people don’t realize what all functionalities that they offer with their products. A lot of mobile phone companies blog to inform people about what all their mobile phones can do and what all features people are looking forward to.

Most of the products that are designed in today’s world are designed based on client requirement or based on what a group of people in the society need. So it is imperative to know what they want if you want your company to make handsome profits.

Blogs can also be used for advertising too and therefore you can earn money or promote some other business of yours or a relative’s or a friend’s through your own blog. Blogging has truly come a long way since its inception and has become more than just a bare necessity for individuals and business.

An "upsell" is a simple and effective but little used concept.

An upsell occurs when you have already made the sale in the customers mind.  He has decided to buy and is digging for his credit card so that he can get the product you just offered him.  Now is the time to push the upsell.

Now you shouldn't just grab any old product and offer it out at this point, though that may even bring in more money than not offering an upsell at all.  Remember, the customer is already sold, they have already decided to spend their money on your product or service.  You need to take this opportunity to increase the size of the sale or order.

The best upsell you can create is something that you know the customer will need or want in the future (because you know the market) that the customer doesn't realize they will need or want.

Let me say this again.  The little moment between the time the customer reaches into his back pocket for his credit card and the time he hands you the number (or enters it on your website) is a goldmine for you.  You need to be able to very quickly educate the customer on the benefits of buying the larger package or the bigger item or the add on right now.

This is done online with web hosting.  You go to some domain name providers and enter the domain name that you want. They briefly explain to  you that you need to also purchase the .biz and .net version of your new domain name along with your .com.  They say it is for your protection, so no one else can register those domains and make money off you name.  AND then they offer it to you at a discount.  After reading that little blurb right there you almost feel stupid if you don't take the offer.  That is an example of a great upsell.

When was the last time you went in to your local electronics store and bought something?  What happens when you gt up to the counter to pay for it?  They offer you an extended warranty.  That is the upsell.  Until you got to the counter, you hadn't really thought of that but while you are digging your credit card out of your pocket, they offer you an additional 2 years warranty for only $39 but you have to buy it now.

Take a look at your products or services and see what you can bundle together or offer as an upsell.  Write a quick blurb about it.  It has to offer a benefit to the customer and should be offered at a price that they can only get right now, as they are purchasing.

Watch how that increases your profits.

Did you ever wonder why (looking back in history) you can look at 2 companies or people and one of them succeeded while the other did not? Sometimes the difference in what they did was very subtle but one is remembered and the other forgotten. It wasn't always for lack of resources or timing or any of those things we attribute to being successful. Sometimes it is because one has a clearer idea of who their market is or who they are really catering to.

McDonald's restaurant knows this. They cater to kids. They have kids friendly restaurants and give out little toys and create an atmosphere that is appealing to this target market. I have 4 young kids and it is a pretty special time for them to go to McDonald's. I really don't care for the food that much but we go because the kids enjoy the environment.

Let's look at Google and Yahoo. Both are successful search engines, very large, have been in business for some time and are well known. But see, Google knows who their market is. The marketer. If you want to advertise on Google, they make it very easy. You can go there and within 5 minutes set yourself up an adwords account, put up ads and start advertising. You can pull up your stats and see what your campaigns are doing very quickly. The stats aren't real-time but not too far out. If you want to display their ads on your website, no problem. Set yourself up an adsense account and start showing ads that are relevant to your content and cater to your viewers. No problem.

They are in business to do business and if you are a marketer you can work with them.

I recently went to Yahoo Search to set up a PPC account. It was a bit more involved and not nearly as straight forward. I haven't been back in a while to check my stats because I have a hard time finding the login button on their page and I don't feel like searching for it. When I signed up for my account, I had a coupon for some free advertising and it took a few days to get that applied to my account - after I emailed them. Just seems like I am bothering them if I want to advertise with them.
I am going to quote from an email I just got from Pay Per Click authority Perry Marshall (in regards to the former Overture/Yahoo keyword research tool):

"Any business plan so utterly STUPID as to abandon one of the

best loved keyword research tools on the entire Internet….

(notice: Google introduced this new stuff immediately after

Yahoo disabled theirs) and build such a royally bureaucratic

PPC system as Yahoo has…

….Deserves to have their ass kicked by Carl Icahn,

shareholder mutiny, hostile takeover by Microsoft, or

whatever other grim fate befalls them."

The point here is to know who your market is - and it may not always be what it looks like on the outside. Google is a search engine that the average person uses and is familiar with. If you were to ask around, you might think they are in the business of offering a search service to people looking for things online. But Google knows that their market is the marketer. If they cater to the marketer by making it easy to do business, they will have a successful search engine. They will remain popular because the people who are advertising (read: spending the money) are welcome to use their service.

Thanks to Google for picking up the slack and serving the marketing crowd.

Commodity: a mass-produced unspecialized product.

As soon as you base your sale on the price, you reduce your product or service to a commodity.  For any business to be successful, you will need to set yourself apart.  What is different about what you offer?

This is called a U.S.P. - a Unique Selling Proposition

You have to think long and hard about what it is that sets your business or your product or your service apart from your competition.

Once you determine your USP and what sets you apart, you need to first, make sure that your employees know what it is.  It is possible that the thing you think you are selling is not the message that is getting out.  So secondly. make sure that your message is getting out to your customers.  You need to be using your USP as your message so that your customers can understand what it is that sets you apart and why they should buy from you

Once you have something that can set you apart, you are no longer selling your product or service based on price.  That is when you start to move from being a commodity to offering something of value.  Once you can move the focus of your customers off the price and on to the benefits, you will start to increase your profits.