Working From Home Business Time Management

Have you noticed that your days just disappear now that you're working from home? Do you get to the end of the day and still seem to have a bucket load of jobs left undone? Where did the time go?

Worse still, if you've been working from home for some time now you might be finding that you're working way more hours than you ever did when you were an employee.

I recently received an email that reminded me of some simple steps which can really help you stay focused and work less hours. These tips are from world renowned coach and mentor, Dr John Demartini.

I've noticed especially since I started reviewing my big goals each morning and night I'm more disciplined with the activities I do each day. Amazingly on my second night of reading my goals last thing before I went to sleep, I woke in the middle of the night and saw so clearly that I'd been acting like a little mouse on a wheel, just churning over the same stuff everyday and I didn't seem to be getting closer to my big goals. I realized why - I was spending so much time involved in low priority activities (like checking Facebook, Twitter, allowing people to take up my valuable time and so on). Now it's like I immediately wake up to myself if I'm staying too long in low priority activities and quickly move to the ones which will take me closer to my goals the fastest.

So, here's the list from Dr Demartini - Enjoy!...

1. Write and read your goals. No mucking around. Do this at the start of every day.
2. Clear away your goal's obstacles. Banish time-wasters, like talking on the phone with no clear intent or TV.
3. Prioritize your activities. What will make the most difference NOW?
4. Act on top priorities. Action, action, ACTION.
5. Visualize your success. When meditating. When walking the dog. When driving the car.
6. Write and read your affirmations. Every day. Print it out and put it in your wallet so you can read it when you’re out.
7. Practice deep breathing and stretching. Make sure that you move stagnant energy out of your body.
8. Do selective and collective reading. Find mentors, and LEARN their strategies. APPLY their strategies.
9. Groom for success. Rid your wardrobe of ALL clothes that don’t scream ‘success.’ 
10. Dress for success. Every time. Every Day. You never know when you’ll next big opportunity. 
11. Love what you do and do what you love. It’s the only way to life an on-purpose life. 
12. Surround yourself with 'succeeders'. They will drive you to step-up in every way. 
13. Drink lots of water. This can’t be emphasised enough. 
14. Eat light, moderate meals. This too can’t be emphasised enough in terms of illness prevention. 
15. Reduce the four 'addictors' — coffee, cigarettes, alcohol and sugar. All are stimulants. Some are poison that will kill you. 
16. Contract and then relax all muscles. It helps flush your lymphatic system and boosts your immune system. 

I found a great article on the Basics you'll need for marketing online. So, rather than re-invent the wheel, I'll share the article here...

Internet Marketing Basics

by Jeff Clay

The internet marketing basics.
No hype. No BS. No onslaught of overwhelming information.
Just substance and a clear, concise explanation.

1. MINDSET

The first thing you need to succeed in internet marketing is the proper mindset.
Mindset is how you look at something. It’s your attitude. If you think internet marketing is easy and will bring in tons of cash overnight with no effort whatsoever, you have the wrong mindset and you are setting yourself up for failure.
Internet marketing can help your business grow. Understand that and you just might end up with an income that exceeds your wildest imagination.
When you value your business, your goals matter. You get things done. You execute your tasks every single day because the success of your business depends on it.
Treat your business like a hobby and you end up procrastinating, easily distracted, and indifferent to whether or not your tasks are completed day after day. There is no sense of urgency.
If you don’t execute, you don’t succeed. Simple as that.
It doesn’t matter if your business venture is part-time or full-time, commit yourself to one year of hard work and long hours. You should see results relatively soon, but expect to work hard if you want to earn more than six figures a year. Don’t expect it to happen overnight.
Understand that you will have to spend some money. It’s a business. Have you ever heard of a business that can generate revenue of $250,000.00, or more, every year with no investment whatsoever?
You don’t have to spend a lot, but be prepared to spend money if it will help generate revenue. If you don’t have faith in yourself to earn that money back, you probably won’t.
Get it in your head that you are 100% totally committed to building a business for at least one year. If you do things right, and you execute every day, you are almost guaranteed to make money.
Not only will you make money, but you will have a very profitable business that generates revenue with very little effort to maintain it. Making it to that point is not easy. Prepare yourself for the journey ahead.

2. LEARN INTERNET MARKETING

Once you have the proper mindset, find a reliable source and learn internet marketing. Make sure you learn fundamentals, the terminology, the basic tools and resources.
Understand the big picture and how all the steps fit together. Once you understand the basics, take action and learn through experience.
If you come across a sales pitch that sounds too good to be true, it is. Ignore anything that promises results immediately. Ignore anything that requires no effort. In fact, ignore ALL sales pitches and buy products from the PEOPLE that you have learned to trust.
You should constantly be on the lookout for better tools, methods or resources, but success comes from executing day after day, not from any ONE program or resource. A good eBook, guide, tool or program can help you improve your performance and become more efficient but the formula for success remains the same.
If you spend more than a month or so learning the basics of internet marketing, you either need a new source, or you’re simply procrastinating. To a certain extent, my assumption will depend on whether you commit yourself full-time or part-time, but the bottom line is, once you understand the process, start executing.
The number one reason people don’t succeed in internet marketing is because they don’t execute day after day after day. Yes, you will probably be slow in the beginning. You might even get stuck. When you get stuck, quickly find a solution and get unstuck.
Don’t try to learn every little detail in advance. You’ll learn more as you gain experience. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, because you will DEFINITELY make mistakes if you work in internet marketing for any period of time. Mistakes can be good. Learn from them.
Learn the basics of internet marketing. Understand the big picture and how all of the different elements come together.
You don’t need to understand everything. You’ll probably still have many questions in your head, but once you understand the internet marketing process, GET TO WORK.

3. GET ORGANIZED

Internet marketing can be overwhelming. There are so many different areas to focus on, it’s hard to decide where to start and what to spend your time on. That’s why it is essential that you get yourself organized to ensure that you don’t waste time.
Prioritize. After you spend a month learning about internet marketing, you need to dedicate 80% – 90% of your time on THE MOST IMPORTANT TASKS FIRST, BEFORE you do anything else.
Then and only then, can you tweak your website, read a new internet marketing eBook, or check your statistics. Your time is valuable and you need to do the things that will make you money first. That means anything that will bring you traffic or revenue.
Create a good record keeping system on your computer. When you work in internet marketing, you have tons of content and information to deal with. You need to create a folder system where you can save that information and find it again, quickly.
Websites, user names, passwords, account numbers, articles, links, affiliate products, forms, emails, website content and on and on. The documents add up fast, so set up a folder system that works for you.
Track your work. How many pages of content do you have? How many links do you have? Where are the links coming from? What keywords are you targeting with each link? If you don’t have this information, how do you know if you’re making progress? How do you know what needs improvement or where to focus your energy? Create a spreadsheet and keep track of your work.

4. KEYWORD RESEARCH

A keyword, or keyword phrase, is what people type into Google or Bing to find information. If you want to find the best pizza in Chicago, you go to Google, type in “best pizza in chicago” and Google gives you the results. That’s a keyword phrase.
Some keywords are ultra-competitive and it would take a lot of money, time and work to get on the first page of search results. Other keywords may have almost no competition BUT no traffic either. Find keywords with low competition AND good traffic.
Choosing keywords also involves market research. Don’t choose keywords for markets where people won’t spend money. Find niches where people are hungry for solutions to their problems and they’re willing to pay for it.

5. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Search engine optimization (SEO) can be broken down into 2 components. On-page SEO and Off-page SEO. On-page SEO means everything that goes onto your website to help it rank better with search engines. You use keywords in strategic locations so that every page is optimized for the search engines.
Off-page SEO is everything outside of your website that helps you rank better in search engines. For the most part, off-page SEO refers to backlinks. Backlinks are just links to your site from other sites.
Off-page SEO is much more important than on-page. Spend most of your time with off-page SEO because it will help bring traffic to your website and help you rank better in search engine results. More info on that in the Traffic section.

6. WEB DESIGN

You need a good website if you really want to make money online. Thanks to WordPress, it’s easy. You can create a fully functioning WordPress website with the click of a few buttons.
You can use WordPress to build any kind of site. It doesn’t have to be a blog. Get your domain. Get hosting. Put your website up. Get to work on the stuff that will make you money.
If you don’t want to use WordPress, most website hosting companies have software programs that you can use to build websites even if you have no technical skills.
Don’t spend too much time designing the perfect website. Spending more than a few weeks to design a basic website is not the best use of time. Get it done fast, you can always change it later.
When you create your website you need to put up a subscription form. This is a form that tells people to put in their name and email address to subscribe to your website. They do it because you offer them something they want in exchange for signing up. You want them to do it because email marketing is one of the best and most lucrative methods for making money online.
There are online services that make email marketing very easy. They even have forms already created that you can simply edit and post on your website. The whole process can be automated and is well worth the effort that it takes to get started.

7. TRAFFIC

In the world of internet marketing, traffic means visitors to your website. Without it, you won’t make money online.
The best is free traffic. Free traffic comes from backlinks and search engines. Of course, you can always pay for traffic, through advertisements, but you can lose a lot of money if you don’t do it right.
There are tons of ways to get free traffic, including guest blogging, article marketing, social media, press releases, creating blogs, forums, directories and on and on. You get traffic by including a link to your website wherever you post content. That means, you create backlinks wherever you can. The more backlinks you get, the more people that could click on the links and visit your website.
As you create backlinks, you create search engine “authority” or “juice” for your website. As your backlinks grow, you will also start moving up in the search engine results for relevant keywords. Keep creating backlinks until you reach the number 1 spot. Once you get to number 1, start working on related keywords. Don’t be complacent, keep strengthening your websites.
Do something every day that will generate traffic or revenue. Spend 80% – 90% of your time creating content, creating backlinks, getting traffic and monetizing that traffic.

8. MONETIZE

Once you get traffic, you need to monetize that traffic, i.e., make money from it. The best way to make money online is to sell goods or services. You can automate the the process of generating leads online.
Selling affiliate products is another good way to generate revenue. Choose high quality products, promote that product and when someone buys the product through your link, you get a commission.
Find out what works best in your market and implement the methods that bring in the most revenue.

9. ANALYZE

A very important part of internet marketing is analyzing your data. You can use the data to find out what keywords are working and what keywords aren’t working.
You can use data to find out how people are finding your website. You can use data to see what products are selling and what products aren’t selling. If you use it properly, data can tell you where to focus your attention and when you need to change directions.
When you start your business, or website, don’t get distracted by your statistics. Analyzing your stats is not a priority task when you’re just starting out. It is important, but, look at your stats only AFTER you spend 80% – 90% of your time on generating traffic.

10. SUMMARY

That’s the basic formula for success in internet marketing. Follow the steps above and it is very likely that you will succeed.
As you learn and gain more experience, you will probably deviate from the steps above. That’s good. The formula above is simply a foundation and you are expected to build on that foundation.
Always stay focused on your goals. For most people the goal is to get visitors to a website and convert those visitors into paying customers. You do that by creating backlinks.
You do that by helping people find solutions to their problems. You do that by creating the best products or services in your market. You do that by being creative and standing out from the crowd.

Copyright © 2013 Bad Factor | Digital Marketing & Web Design

Basic Tools for Your Online Marketing - Email Marketing

Whether you have a physical business or you are purely online selling through an online store or marketing affiliate products, there are some basic structures you'll need to put in place to be effective.

The number 1 item which all marketers know is your key to massive income online is an email list. To do this effectively you'll need to have an email marketing system. Professional marketers will tell you that for every person you have on your email list you will make $1/month. So you can see it's in your best interests to figure out very quickly how to build your list if you're wanting to generate passive online income (income ticking over on auto pilot).

There are many programs available but the one I recommend is Get Response. The pricing is highly competitive and it is probably one of the simplest setups I've seen. I was surprised how easily I was able to setup an auto responder/signup form for use on my website, blog, squeeze page, etc.

Of course you'll need an email system to receive your emails on your computer. That could be as simple as setting up a gmail account. Whether you're on PC or Mac you should have an inbuilt email program there as well. So get your email receiving program setup, sign up with Get Response or other similar email marketing program and you now have the basic structure to start driving traffic to your marketing ventures.

The last item in this part of your online marketing structure is the squeeze page. This is a one page website which usually has a bold heading with a call to action, maybe a video of your offer, a signup form and sometimes a Buy Now button if you want to sell directly from this page. The first method mentioned using just the signup form would be to help you build your email list. Later on, you can use these squeeze pages to market a product to your already existing email list. For now you will most likely start out using your squeeze page to build your email list.

These days, social media is probably the quickest method for driving traffic to your squeeze page or optin page, so you'll be needing to setup an account in Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Linkedin, Blog and others. We'll cover that in our next article here.

The Mindset for Making Money Online

Before we go too far with learning the mechanics of how to make money online I thought it wise to discuss how your mind is going to be the one most important factor influencing your success or failure in creating wealth online.

For some time now I've attended numerous internet marketing seminars where there are a lineup of successful marketers speaking about their rise to incredible wealth online. Interestingly, a number of these people achieve a major jump in their income seemingly "overnight". What I have heard from a number of these people however is that this wealth has been either taken away from them or impeded in some way very soon after.

To give you an example, one marketer did a product launch and in one 24 hour period sold $50,000 worth of product. Everything was wonderful until the bank put a hold on all the money that was pouring into his merchant account thereby giving him no access to it all. It took this man 6 months of battling with the bank and lots of money in legal expenses before the bank released the money back to him. At the same time this man had crises exploding in various other areas of his business, with court cases and so on.

There was a practical process the man failed to do and that was to advise the bank before his product launch of what he was about to do. He should have let the bank know in advance that there would be a major spike in his bank account and why that would be. What you must realize is the banks are overly cautious because of the rapid increase in online fraud, money laundering, etc. When they see a bank account which has had only a few hundred or a couple of thousand dollars flowing through it for a long time and then all of a sudden $50,000 appears there overnight, the alarm bells ring and the bank will go into instant shutdown of that account. So, always give prior warning to the bank, Paypal or other merchant facility you're using that you're about to do a product launch which could have a major impact on your bank account balance. It's about prior preparation and keeping your merchant facility informed.

The other aspect of this whole sudden wealth phenomena which is highly possible with online marketing is making sure you have a wealth mindset. This man I referred to above came from a family who always lived from week to week financially and had the mindset of "working hard for a basic living". What some successful marketers don't realize is that their childhood programs from family about what's right and what's wrong could well result in them losing or being prevented from accessing their new found wealth. They have a subconscious mindset that won't support massive wealth. Their subconscious programs will find a way to sabotage any great wealth that comes to them.

The programs running in their subconscious mind from family expectations is such that they will be prohibited from keeping or sustaining this new wealth. We listened to a brilliant marketer recently who was making multi millions of dollars online with only 2 people working for him. Out of the blue the IRS knocked on his door demanding access to all his equipment, records, etc because they believed he was engaging in illegal behavior. There was no definitive explanation from the IRS regarding their accusations, but they were able to make this man's life a living hell for several years such that he lost everything he had built for himself and his family. One day they simply dropped the whole injunction against him with a warning they "would be watching him". He has since made new wealth for himself online, but he lives in a private hell in his mind of what could happen to him again one day.

The important words in my last sentence were "he lives in a private hell in his mind". What the man doesn't realize is that hell was there before the IRS arrived on his doorstep. Somewhere in his subconscious mind was a mindset of being unworthy of holding and keeping multi millions of dollars. He thinks that the attack came from outside of himself, but quantum physicists and mind researchers are now telling us that whatever shows up in our lives is simply there as a result of the sum total of our thoughts leading up to this moment in our life. What most of us don't realize is that 95% of our life is being run by our subconscious mind on auto pilot. We have subconscious beliefs or programs that run our lives for us. To get more understanding of the power of your mindset read this article by Dr Bruce Lipton... http://whatisthemind.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/the-power-of-mind-dr-bruce-lipton.html

So, before you launch into your new career of making money online, cover your bases - keep your merchant account informed of your activities, and do some work on your mindset. There are many techniques available - PSYCH-K, EFT, NLP and so on. Any modality that changes subconscious programs will be advantageous, because it is these hidden areas of your mind that could sabotage your best efforts somewhere down the track.

Online Scams

For any online activity it's always good to be aware of the pitfalls. I've noticed for the past few weeks that I've been getting these strange messages on my Twitter account. People I've followed have been sending me messages with a personal message and a shortened hyperlink included. When the link is clicked on it brings up a page which can't be found - most likely because my Antivirus program has blocked it thankfully. I did a Google search and found this informative article on this very topic...

Watch out for These Direct Messages in your Twitter Stream

Have you noticed the number of Twitter Direct Messages that you are receiving that contain a strange personal message? Over the last couple of months the number of these messages has increased and just as worrying the actual messages themselves keep changing.

These are Direct Messages that are apparently from someone that you are following as they are in your Direct Messages.

Messages such as :

This video with you in it had me dying lol

This must be you…

lmao…omg i am laughing so hard at this pic of me my friend found

ROFLMAO i can’t stop laughing at this pic of you

lmao…omg i am laughing so hard at this pic u i just found

haha i cant stop laughing, your facial expression here is priceless!

lmao this video of you is funny as hell, im sharing it with everyone

haha i cant stop laughing, your facial expression here is priceless!

when did you make this video? its hilarious, cant stop laughing lol

This made me laugh so hard when i saw this about you lol

I saw a real bad blog about you, you seen this?

Read this yet? horrible blog going around about you

Someone is posting nasty updates on their twitter about you, heres the posts they’ve been making

I know who has a secret crush on you here on twitter! i promised i wouldnt tell..you must go here  . . . . to find out

You seen what this person is saying about you? . . . .  terrible things..

Hey, so some real nasty things are being said about you here …..  i cant believe what was said..

~ ~ ~ ~

If you were to click on the shortened link then you (hopefully) would be lucky and be blocked by your anti-virus package from a site that is probably loaded with either viruses or malware.

This is a timely reminder that your PC (or Mac) should have up-to-date virus and malware protection (I recommend the latest Norton) and for everyone (Mac users included) DO NOT click on shortened links unless you have a pretty good idea where they will take you or who has sent them.

This is why the bad guys are hacking Twitter accounts and sending these spoof messages as the unwary may think these messages are from a friend.

So be a social media friend and send an open message to the Twitter user whose account was the source of the message. Please tell them to change their password urgently as they have probably been hacked – it is the least you can do.

Please don’t use the word “hacked” as from my experience you’ll get a lot of messages yourself then, instead use something like “h+cked”
PS So just how secure is your Twitter or Facebook password?

Reference: http://www.ianhardacre.com/watch-out-for-these-messages-in-your-twitter-stream/

10 Basic Steps for Online Marketing

It is not enough to have a great website with attractive images and informative content. You need to market it and marketing is an ongoing process. Web marketing is quite different from web development or web design. When it comes to online business you should focus on website advertising.

Before you go for online marketing you should know the basics of it. Here are 10 basic steps that you can follow.

Directory Submission:

It is one of the most effective ways of online marketing. There are thousands of directories.Just choose the right category and submit your website. Go for manual directory submission and try to select important directories like DMOZ first and then move on to specific directories.

Article Marketing:

Article marketing is a very crucial step that you should take for increasing visibility on the Internet. Write informative articles covering the areas of your expertise and submit those articles to relevant article directories. Article submission will undoubtedly boost your online traffic.

Blog Marketing:

This is probably the best Internet marketing technique that you can follow.If you have your own blog then fine enough. If not,create your own blog first. Write useful and relevant content and submit your blog to well known blog directories so that blog search engines can track your blog.

Link Building:

Another great way of getting your business listed in major search engines is link building. Try to get as much inbound links as you can. This will help you to get a good page rank in search engines like Google,Yahoo and MSN.But remember that you should get relevant links means if you have a hotel website you need to get a link related to hotel,travel,tourism etc.

Email Marketing:

It is almost impossible to get in touch with each of your customers or business partners without having an organized mailing list. Take help of email marketing when you launch a new product or service or organize an event or share some industry news and so on. Try to send emails at least once a week if not more.

Press Release:

Other than reaching your business partners or customers it is also important to reach media websites and online publications. The best way to do so is press release. It is one of the most effective ways to drive traffic to your website.

PPC Advertising:

Pay per Click or PPC is one of the greatest online advertising tools.It is not a free service. You need to pay the search engine for every click but it is worth your money. PPC offers good return on investment.

Video Marketing:

Video marketing is an attractive way of drawing your customers' attention.It will surely improve the traffic of your website. Video is probably the fastest way of communication.Therefore you will discover Youtube has millions of members.

Social Bookmarking:

If you want to share your web pages for free social bookmarking is the best option for you. You can be a part of any gigantic network of people.You can share your interests with them.People can easily find your website giving relevant keywords.

Social Networking:

It is the most effective online marketing strategy. If you want to reach your target audiences create a profile on various social networks,add your profile to relevant categories and create groups. It can immediately put you in contact with millions of people you wouldn't have reached otherwise.

http://www.articlesbase.com/marketing-articles/10-basic-steps-for-online-marketing-900884.html