Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by addykho

Xmas Gift - 50 WordPress Templates for Free

addykho — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 13:07:46 +0800

I am giving out 50 wordpress templates for free as a Xmas gift here.
Feel free to download and choose the one you like best for your website.
You can sell or even share with your friends.

Download it here:
http://addykho.com/others/xmas-gift-free-w...mplates-themes/

Addy

Interesting and Funny eBay Auctions!

addykho — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 21:14:01 +0800

Try if You Dare!

Every now and then we heard of people selling interesting stuff or even put themselves up for sale on eBay. This has made eBay one of the most interesting portal for people to search for things they want to buy or things that they cannot get locally.

I have friend who always hunt on eBay for Baba Nyonya furniture, costumes etc. He can always find something expensive on eBay but only pay a fraction of the actual cost as people who put up the item for bidding may not know how valuable the things are. If you find something ‘interesting’ from your grandfather’s wardrobe, try to post on eBay for sale and, you never know it may make you million of dollars richer:). So basically eBay is a fun place to ‘hunt’ around during your free time.

There are some interesting eBay auctions which have caught my attention over the years (some of them may still running live in auction). I have decided to list them down here for sharing:

1. X-Men Toilet Seat: The number one selling comic book of all time, X-Men #1 (1991), sold over 7 MILLION copies. It was released with 4 variant covers and a “deluxe” edition with a gatefold cover and glossy pages. One of each of the issues were carefully deconstructed, panel by panel, cover by cover using scissors and X-Acto blades. Hundreds of separate images were glued to every square inch (other than water holes) of the bowl, tank, seat, and lids.

Interesting Disclaimer from the seller here: ” I CAN NOT guarantee the efficacy of this art piece if it were to be installed as a working toilet. It would probably work, but water italic; will find a way into the smallest pinhole and the bowl interior is possibly subject to degradation. The exterior is likely immune to problems, and as far as I know the actual plumbing in the tank is still functional. But again, I would hate to think that all the work that went into the bowl could possibly be flushed away, along with the fact that the fully covered back of the tank would be butted up against a wall and never be seen. But once you own it, it would be your choice as to how strongly you feel about……using it.”

2. Vampire Killing Kit : Western Vampire needs a special kit to kill them. You may want to consider putting up a Chinese vampire killing kit for sale on eBay too.

This one is going at the rate of $268.

They even come with a fascinating video:
[YOUTUBE]<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-OmI2Q2vxfo&hl=en_GB&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-OmI2Q2vxfo&hl=en_GB&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>[/YOUTUBE]

3. Virgin Mary Sandwich: I am sure you have seen this or heard of this in most of the newspaper in year 2007.

From BBC News:

A decade-old toasted cheese sandwich said to bear an image of the Virgin Mary has sold on the eBay auction website for $28,000. An internet casino confirmed it had purchased the sandwich, saying it had become a “part of pop culture”.

Goldenpalace.com says it will take the sandwich on world tour before selling it and donating the money to charity.

4. Time Travel Theory: I guess we have enough of the movie. Now come the real thing-

For only $10,000,000.00 you can purchase the Theory of Time Travel on eBay. Ronald W. Francis of Project Clockstar posts that “I have been Pondering how to Market such a Phenomenon and feel that eBay is a Good Open Market Forum. After Ten Years of Research and Hard Work, our Discovery Indicates that the Possibility of Time Travel exists. It is a very Complex and Precise Formula. Under Precise Conditions this is Possible and Achievable. This Discovery is Absolutely Real. I have been told my work is” Absolute Exact Science” and “Very Impressive”. It has Shaken my Nervous System due to its Magnitude. The World Should Prepare. Time Travel is Very Close to Reality. I would not Waste Yours or My Time Folks if this were not Real.”

When the eBay Auction is not doing well… here come the update

If $10,000,000.00 is too much for you to handle you can always contribute $10 to the Time Travel Fund. The theory behind this is that time travel is possible however the technology is a long way off……….

5. Sell your Life: In year 2008, Ian Usher put up his ‘life’ so sale on eBay. He even set up a website to promote his auction – http://www.alife4sale.com. Heartbroken after his wife, Laura, left him for another man, Mr Usher came up with the idea of making a clean break and auctioning his entire life on eBay. Everything in his airy three-bedroom, two-bathroom house in Perth ( he migrated to Aus in 2001 from the UK) reminded him of Laura, he declared. So he would sell it all, and walk out with only his wallet and passport, and the clothes on his back. The winner even get a trial in his work place! His auction ended in a little bit of disappointment. The English expatriate’s life was snapped up for a more modest £192,000 or roughly $320.000.

Wedding of Ian Usher with Laura - The Past

But what happen to this guy after selling himself off. He has begun with his new project- Coming out with a Book named: A Life Sold. You can check out his website at http://www.100goals100weeks.com & http://www.ianusher.com.

6. Selling baby naming right: It happened few times in the past the people are raising money via eBay by selling the naming right to their new born baby (or even before being born). It may sound ridiculous to many of you but it happens again and again. You want your kid to be named ‘playboy’ or ‘SevenEleven”? Who to blame? The parents? One of the interesting case as follow:

The Silvermans family auctioning the rights to name their seventh child; bidding started at $150 and the pathetic winner of this truly strange eBay auction paid out $15,000 to name the boy GoldenPalaceDotCom Silverman (again it is the Golden Palace Casino site). As their son grows, it is doubtful the boy will appreciate the name, especially the way it will appear on a business card of nameplate — maybe he’ll post a bizarre auction on eBay for the rights to rename him when he grows up.

7. Selling Virginity: Men Fantasy. People are willing to do anything for money. And I guess if you do it with much publicity, you will be able to do pocket more. Prostitution is the oldest profession or industry. But who knows with eBay, you can sell your virginity at even higher price as compared to those unknown prostitutes who are selling themselves on the street.

Pretty Natalie

22 year-old Natalie Dylan wanted to pay her college tuition by auctioning her naughty bits. Her auction was turned down by eBay. But she then was offered to have her auction taken place in Nevada at the infamous Moonlight Bunny Ranch, a legalized brothel (seen on HBO’s hit series “Cathouse”). The offers on her table even reached into the millions. I guess she should be TAXED!

8. Advertising: You can sell your body as advertising space on eBay. There are plenty of people willing to bid for you.

Karolyne Smith - $10K Tattoo on the Forehead!

9. Celebrity: Belongings or used items from the celebrities can always fetch good prices on eBay. Britney Spear sold chewing gum (spatted out) is being offered for sale on eBay in year 2003 and reported to reach $14,000. May be you can try to capture the fart of Lady Gaga and sell on eBay.

The list can go very long.. Don’t know if the prime minister would mind if I put him up for bidding on eBay! It is interesting to see how much he worth! The winner can do anything he wants to you?? ….. ehm….

I was banned for Big Signature

addykho — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 19:36:48 +0800

I was banned for few weeks for having big and "add me in Facebook' signature spammy I guess or too much of marketing.

I guess that is a lesson learnt as I didn't check the rules and listened to someone here to post my 'add me in facebook' link and image on the signature.

So now I took off the Add me in Facebook and back to original signature. Miss it here!! And this is my 1st post here after so long.

Admin or Goldfries, if the signature still not ok here, pls let me know!

Anyway, just like to share some of my e-commerce experience here:

E-commerce Success Know How

You can make money online selling digital or physical products, software or services. A lot of internet marketers are building their business empire based on affiliate marketing. However, having your own e-commerce business will give you full control of your business destiny and giving you sustainable online income. Therefore e-commerce should not be left out in your Make Money Online portfolio.

There is no difference between selling online and offline. Basically there are 2 stages- PREselling and Post Selling.
PREselling:

(1)Traffic:

If you are selling offline, you would prefer to open your shop at busy and crowded street, mall or housing area. This will guarantee you lots of walk-in customers by default. The same preference applied to selling online.

If you have a physically product to sell online, on top of having your very own e-commerce website, you should consider selling the same product at market places like eBay, Amazon, Overstock, eCrater, uBid where you will be getting free traffics which are ready there for you. You will also increase your income by many folds when you sell at several market places. Imaging if you are getting USD500 of sale from eBay every month, by having your products at Amazon, Overstock, uBid etc will easily multiply your income by several folds.

For your own e-commerce site, you may consider PPC, Google organic ranking, links or refer by other sites, directory listing, email marketing, article marketing, social media etc to generate traffic to your site. It will take some efforts in generating traffic to your e-commerce site.

(2)Convincing Sales Pitch:

Nowadays, having traffic to your sites just isn’t enough.

If you open a shop in a shopping mall where competition is fierce, you will have to stand out from the crowd to win your sale. You may want to employ a very good and decent looking sales person who can talk a bird down from the tree, or you are selling at a competitive price with very good customer service and impressive deco.

There is no difference in selling online. You need a good sales pitch and decent web design to at least attract people to stay long enough on your sites to buy. It is even better if the potential customers hear something good about your products before they arrive at your sites. For example, your product is recommended by someone they trust via newsletter or friends in Facebook. Remember, whatever we are selling, we are providing solution to people’s needs. The copywriting has to be spot on.

Money back guarantee, feedbacks and call-to-action are important features to show on your site. They not only help to increase the conversion rate but also help in your SEO campaign. Google gives you extra points for that. You may also consider building your shipping cost onto your product cost and give FREE shipping on your sites. It is the nature of human being to take advantage of FREE offer.
Post Selling

(1)More Products:

Have you ever noticed that there is always a convenient shop at the petrol station? A lot of times people would drop by the shop after paying for the petrol. Or very often in a retail shop, after making your payment for your purchase, you still have to walk past some shelves with interesting products and then find another cashier counter at the end before you can physically leave the shop. All these are just another up-selling tactic of the businesses.

When come to online, if you ever purchased digital products from some Gurus, you may remember that after your first payment, there was another OTO (One time offer) popping up trying to sell you another product? So the same up-selling tactic being applied to both offline and online businesses. When you shop in Amazon, I am sure you have seen this before- “ Customers viewed this item also view…”. So the idea here is, trying to get the most out of your buying customers. The saying is always right- “Those who buy will keep on buying”.

(2)Contacts:

If someone asks you to fill in the survey form or personal details to win prizes in the shop, you are giving away your contact details for their future communication with you. The shop will send you their promotion or new catalogues in post.

We shall do the same online. And we need the help of GetResponse to collect email addresses of our customers online. For all the internet marketers, it is an undeniable truth that Money is in the List. You should always give out something for free as bait in exchange for your customer email address. Your opt in form should be seen on your e-commerce site, and also in the page where the customer is directed to after successful payment. For example, if you are purchasing a Home Air Purifier product online and you are offered a FREE ebook on How to Stay Healthy, would you give away your email for the free ebook that will help to improve the health of your family? Most likely the answer is YES.

I am sure by now you can see how to integrates your e-commerce business with affiliate marketing with the leads collected- more sales in the future. To grow your business I mean long term business), you should now starting to capture leads (email address) of your customers.

The 9 Most Successful Types of People on Facebook

addykho — Sat, 29 May 2010 23:27:30 +0800

The 9 Most Successful Types of People on Facebook

Thanks to The Oatmeal to come out with these funny cartoon images. Some of you may have seen this before but I am sure you have seen the cartoon images under different headline- The 9 Most Annoying Types of People on Facebook.

We all know that social media is meant for ’social’. And of course we have seen a lot of people making use of social media for marketing, branding etc. There is nothing wrong about that! But you must target the RIGHT people.

If some names come up in your mind when you see the following images, that means those people are either very successful in their marketing or they are someone who annoy you a lot on Facebook. Whichever scenario it is, that person has achieved his purpose- to create awareness for himself, his product, brand, service, or event (of course some people just want to while away their time on Facebook). That is why I call them the 9 Most Successful types of people on Facebook- you REMEMBER them!

I am not sure if you remember me on Facebook. If you do, then I may be one of the 9 types of people If you still have not added me on Facebook, then you better think twice before you ADD ME!

The World is Changing. Are You?

addykho — Thu, 13 May 2010 17:33:11 +0800

The World is ever Changing and You Must Keep Up with the Pace!

I am not talking about the weather or global warming here. I am talking about Business!

No matter what business you are running, you surely want to monitor or at least find out what your competitors are doing. Do you know that you can do this with just few clicks on your computer? And the best of part of it is that you will have your competitors daily activities sent to your mail box?

Isn’t that interesting? Ok, I better stop bragging here. The answer is very simple – Google Alerts.

What you have to do is to go to Google Alerts and key in the keywords of your business. For example, if I am in the Discount Coupon Business, then I will key in “discount coupon’ in Google Alerts.

Google will capture all activities online in related to ‘discount coupon’ and send all the info or news of ‘discount coupon’ to my mail box. What I have to do is to check my mail box to find out what other people are doing online to promote the ‘discount coupon’ business. The alerts normally come in News, Blogs and Web forms. It is very comprehensive. As you can see from the image above, you can choose to receive the alerts everyday or once a week or as it happens.

Why is this information important to you? Let’s say I am in Discount Coupon Business. With all the Google Alerts I am getting, I know what other people around the world are doing in this business. I know what kind of discount coupons are given out, how they talk the merchants into giving them very good discounts etc. And I also know in what ways the discount coupons are given out, i.e. via sms? online print out? attached in the magazine? Basically you have all the up-to-date info in front of you everyday! You will have the upper hands over your local competitors easily. Imaging the Era without internet….

For those who are interested in Search Engine Optimisation, you will be able to build your banklinks on those websites which are related to your business or keywords. (**Backlinks are the url (your website url) placed on other people websites that link back to your website. The more quality backlinks you have, the higher chance your website will rank well in Google Search Result Pages). You can save yourself plenty of times from looking around online for the good websites to build your backlinks. Google alerts basically tell you which websites are doing the same business and having the same targeted keywords as yours. If you have your backlinks on those websites, then Google will consider that you are getting ‘votes’ from your peers of the same industry and therefore rank you higher.

So if you want to build your business, either online or offline, go and subscribe to Google Alerts now!

Add me on FACEBOOK

How to Crash or Blend your iPad

addykho — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 22:08:14 +0800

Is Blogging the History? No If You Know How To Blend or Crash Your iPad

I have lots of friends who used to be very active in blogging before have shown sign of slowing down. The reason being is they are all becoming very active in Facebook. Facebook, Twitter, Linked, MySpace, and many other social networking sites have dominated a large parts of our daily life nowadays. It is much easier to post a short sentence in Facebook or Twitter and get the whole world notice of that you are up to. And another beauty of it is, you can post every minute if you want. You can't create an original blog post every minute right? So who cares about blogging anymore!! ?? The answer to you is Business. Business needs a blog for branding, promotion, search engine optimisation and sell.

If you own a business and want to create a blog, unless you are a celebrity, it is probably much more effective for you to create a blog under your business name rather than your personal identity. And you can always integrate your business blog to your sales website.

So what is the point of having a blog for your business?

If you are a business man, you definitely like to get something back from the time and money you spend in marketing. The same thing applied to your business blog; you want your blog to help to sell. But do not make your blog too serious and too corporate. No one will come back to a blog that talk like their bosses or middle-aged corporate speaking. Your aim is to have people returning to your blog on regular basis and subscribe to your blog. You can be a bit viral like Blendtec. Blentec is company that sell blender. And if you check out their blog, they use their blender to blend, crash, slice everything single thing they can find on earth, this including, the latest iPad, iPhone, diamond..etc. Watch their video clip from their blog and you will be amazed! The blender is selling like hot cake since they throw out this weekly blender video.- Will it Blend.

Or you can check out their viral video on YouTube too- What do you think of this. Only 1 week and it already has 5 mil view on youtube.

[YOUTUBE]<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/lAl28d6tbko&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/lAl28d6tbko&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>[/YOUTUBE]

Here is my tips for successful business blogging:

1. Who is your audience? - You must know who your targeted audiences are. By knowing who your audiences are, you should write in the tune and using the voice that suits and appeals to them. Example, if you own a hotel and you have a blog attached to your hotel website. You cannot blog everyday about how good your hotel is or what facilities do you have and who are your new guests checking in today etc. Of course your potential guests would love to know what facilities your hotel has (in fact this can go to your hotel website itself), but they also interested to find out where they can do in town and where is the best place to go for local food. I am sure you have travelled to a lot of places yourself. So Ask yourself what do you want to find out most when you arrive in town that is totally stranger to you? You may want to know what are the interesting places in town, how to get there, any big events going on in town, what are the best local food and where can you find the laundry service, and where is the money changer..etc. So write something what your customers or your audiences are looking for in your blog and also touch on your hotel every now and then.

2. Give before you Take- Try to give your potential customers more than others. It is a competitive world out there. And everyone is expecting to get free information online these days. So you have to feed them with the info they are looking for and help them to solve their problem online. If your company is selling weight loss product, then your blog shall provide them solution on how to lose weight step by step, what to eat what not to eat, and what exercise to do... and then touch on your product which will accelerate the weight loss process. So trying to give more info to your customers and do not sell them directly- no hard selling in your blog.

3. Make friend with your potential customers- Trying to make friends and be very personal to every single one of your readers. This is what we call relationship marketing. Would you buy from a stranger? I bet you prefer to buy from someone you know or someone reputable like from eBay or Amazon. But if you are totally new to someone online, you shall take the opportunity to build a relationship with your potential customers. There are may e-commerce site run a pay per click campaign online. They will sit back and lure people to buy from them. Even though people do buy sometimes, but the customers tend to forget about them after the sale. So the best thing to do is to give something free to your customers in exchange for their email address. Then you can always email (at programmed intervals) them and build a trust between you and your potential customers. Ultimate aim of all these is to make one or even more sales to your customers. This is also why it is important to integrate email marketing to the blog.

4. Keep updating- You will have to keep your blog 'alive'. Constant updating of your blog is vital as search engine like Google love new content. I am sure you ever come across blogs with the latest post updated few months ago or even years. An outdated blog is worse than no blog at all because this really give very bad impression to people who will think that you are not taking your business seriously. So how do you expect to sell them?

5. Profession domain name- Do not use free blogging host service like www.blogger.com. It is like using Yahoo for your business email address. It is just not professional. For example, if you own a domain like http://instantcashinbox.com, then you should use info@instantcashinbox.com (by the way this is my very own website). Do Not use Instantcashinbox@yahoo.com. This just looks very ugly! So same thing applied to your business blog. If you own ABC123.com, then your blog should be something like http://blogs.ABC123.com/. Do not use ABC123.blogger.com.

6. Social media and social bookmark- Always have your social networking account like Facebook, Twitter and social bookmark like Digg, Stumbl, Delicious etc on the blog. This will help the marketing of your product and also your blog.

Some of the good business blogs that I would recommend you are:

a. Zappos- Best Online Customer Service Shoe Shop by Tony http://blogs.zappos.com/

b. Word Tracker- SEO Tools http://www.wordtracker.com/blog

c. Capital Chronicle- Banking and Finance blog and business by itself http://www.capital-chronicle.com/

d. World biggest online bookstore, Amazon- Blog that promotes Books of course http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/id/A287JD9GH3ZKFY

e. And the last one is my very own blog http://addykho.com Feel free to disagree with me, lol - I am trying my best to give my readers all sort of online marketing, internet business or e-commerce and search engine optimisation info. Comments are welcomed!

* Add Me On Twitter

* Add Me On Facebook

Long Tail- The Tail You Should Not Overlook

addykho — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 09:22:29 +0800

Where does the long tail come from? What is long tail and why is it called long tail?

Long tail has become more prominent in this digital area. Internet has change the whole perspective of doing business. Nowadays, you can find almost everything online. Example, if you want to purchase an album of some unknown Africa musicians or Japanese Acapella music from the record shop like Speedy, HMV or the big time American music retailer like Wal-Mart, you may not find those album on the shelf in the shop. The reason being is, there is so little demand for those albums and it makes no sense for the record company to display those albums on the shelf. The shelf space is limited and don't you think it is better off to display the more popular or the top ten hits on the shelf? The survival of those record shops depending on the sale of the albums. So they cannot take the risk to display albums that only sell 1 or 2 copies per year!

But the story is different when comes to online. The is no such limitation like shelf space online (theoretically it can be as big as you want). You can 'display' anything you like, and that is the reason why the online music company like Rhapsody can have up to 8 millions tracks in the server, while Wal-Mart can only have less than 2% of what Rhapsody can offer in the shop!! So you can see the huge difference between online and offline business.

What I am trying to tell you here is, one can only sell those popular products in the shop and forced to forego the less popular or lower demand products in offline business. But as mentioned before, internet has changed the whole perspective of doing business. Those so called less popular or lower demand products can be 'displayed' online at no cost and most important, they are selling as much as the popular product when added up together. In other words, they are now sharing the same platform with the popular products. The chart below shows example of the sales (downloaded) of music online. It can be seen that the popular tracks are being downloaded at high frequency. But if you look at the total area below the curve for the less popular tracks, it is more or less similar to the area of the popular tracks. In fact, as pointed out by Chris Anderson, the editor in chief of Wired and also the Author of The Long Tail, The Longer Long Tail and also Free, every single track on Rhapsody sells! So the curve just never touch ZERO... and it goes on, very long. And this is Long Tail. Having said that, Wal-Mart is ever changing. They now also have their own online MP3 download business.

In statistic, the curves like that are called Long Tailed Distributions, as the Tail is Long relative to the Head.

The Long Tail principal is applicable to all businesses in this era, especially in internet business. Sometimes we call it a niche market. You do not want to go head to head with the big boy in your business when you just first start online. For example, I just set up a new e-commerce site more or less 1 month ago selling Bamboo Charcoal Home Air Purifiers & Water Purifiers- http://charcoalhomeairpurifiers.com. If I were to go head to head with some old names and also big boys in the market to rank for the keyword air purifier or even home air purifiers, it may take me ages and also great effort to rank on top of the Google SERPs (search engine result pages). You can see from Google keyword tools that air purifier has 1.5 mil searches in the US last month, and also around 1.5 mil worldwide per month. The advertiser competition bar is full, and the cost per click (CPS) is around USD5.80. The Google also shows that there are 2.4mil websites fighting for that keyword phrases. This tells you that air purifier is a competitive keyword phrases to target for.

So the best bet for me is to go for long tail keywords, e.g. bamboo charcoal air purifiers, or less competitive keywords, e.g. Bamboo Charcoal. Then it is easier, and also required less effort to rank on top of Google SERPs. The search volume for bamboo charcoal air purifiers in Google may be 'too niche' and of little search volume, but it will give you some businesses from time to time and good for any businesses to kick start. If you search for the keyword phrases- bamboo charcoal air purifiers in Google, you will see that my website or relevant websites that link to my website actually rank on 2,3,4,5,6 & 8 on the 1st page of Google SERPs at the time of writing . And if you go and search for Bamboo Charcoal in Google, you will see that my site is also rank at the 9th position on the 1st page of Google SERPs ( I am sure it will move up higher soon with time). More businesses or $$$ will start coming in when the website move higher up in the ranking, especially for keyword phrases like Bamboo Charcoal which gives enough search volume for the business.

There is no reason why a website cannot be found under different keywords or keyword phrases. Lets look at the graph below to understand why the long tail keywords are targeted for my e-commerce site and how the sale will increase with time when the website move up in Google SERPs for more competitive keywords.

So internet is a platform for everyone. Some big names may dominate the majority of the market, but a smaller player will have his or her share in the niche market. You can target the niche market to sell online but make sure at least there is reasonable demand for it (research via Google keyword Tool). There is always chances for you to work your way up and compete with those big names online and out perform them in the Google SERPs.

Niche market does not necessary has to be in the niche of the product. It can also be geography niche as well. Example you can have 'Hotel in Centre London', rather than 'London Hotel'. Or you can even target 'Hotel in London for disable people'. All these are special niche that one can always target for. So do not worry if you cannot sell online. Do your own research online as there is niche and long tail in every industry. The online music download is a very good example that shows there is market for a lot of different businesses online and the small players can also make money online!

101 Top Tips for Work From Home-Make Money Online

addykho — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:52:34 +0800

I am here to share the 101 Tips of Making Money Online.

Lots of people want to work from home; no commuting, more time with the family, and the glitzy promises of wealth draws a lot of people in. But if you’re going to be even remotely successful at this, you have to know what you want, what you are comfortable doing and what to expect. Whatever you doing, remember online business is not a GET RICH QUICK scheme. Just like offline business, it has to be carried out in an ethical manner.

The following is a list of tips taken from all manner of at home workers, including friends’ and my own experience and sharing. Some of them may sounds familiar or are ‘common sense’ to you but they are worth mentioning as they are the FACT and will affect your decision to jump onboard as what to venture into online. The tips are applicable everywhere, no matter where you are- Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, UK, US, Korea, Taiwan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand ..etc.

I have slotted them under different headlines, i.e. the workplace, computer and software, the attitude, at home workers-which one are you, wholesalers and turnkeys, choosing a market, communication, payment online, advertising around, outsourcing, honesty, avoiding scams, avoiding viruses, trojans, spyware, and infections, your health while working from home, the Myths busted! And lastly I also give you a bonus- Free money making website designed for you and also show you how to grab yourself a FREE Domain name.

Feel free to check out the Work From Home tips.

Or download a copy Here.

Thanks
Addy Kho

Add me on FACEBOOK

Add me on TWITTER

Bamboo Charcoal Home Air Purifiers - Pls comment

addykho — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:18:39 +0800

I just set up a new e-commerce website. Please comment!

== > Bamboo Charcoal Home Air Purifiers & Water Purifiers

Thank You!

Addy

How Much is Each Customer Worth for your Ecommerce

addykho — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:49:10 +0800

How much is each customer worth for your online ecommerce business?

I am sure you always hear people saying that those who bought from you before will always buy from you again. They are more likely to become your returning customers, be it buying the same product or other products that you are promoting.

Before you start an online business, please make sure that you do not fall into the low end of any market and compete on the price with many others. Imaging if I am selling a product costs USD49 as compared to you selling a product costs only USD4.90. You may have to sell 10 products to make the same amount of money that I am making with only 1 sale (assuming the profit margin is proportionate). In normal circumstances, the higher the price the better the profit margin.

Of course it is acceptable if you have few OTOs (one time offers) or upselling following your first sale. Some people try to attract the potential customers to pay very little for the 1st product and then promote them the 2nd or 3rd products after they manage to close the 1st deal. This is a good marketing strategy because as mentioned above, those who purchased from you before will always buy again from you- people tend to purchase from someone whom they are familiar with or whom they trust.

So think about the products or services that you are going to sell online and see how you can make the most out from your customers. How much income can you generate from each customer per year? If at all possible, pick a product or service that can build a long term relationship with your customers and hence getting them to buy from you again and again. For example, you can sell a health product that demand repeated purchase from time to time. Or you can sell your membership site that charge your members monthly fee.

So back to the question- how much is each customer worth for your ecommerce sites? The rules of thumb from my personal experience is to generate minimum USD50 per annum from each customer. Why minimum USD50? Sometimes you may spend money on Google adwords advertising which costs you some money. If the cost for you to convert someone into a paying customer is 5USD. Then 5USD seems like a good bargain if you can expect each customer to pay you USD50 per year. If you know how much is each customer worth for your ecommerce sites, then you can budget your ads spending.

I hope you have grasped the idea that I am trying to convey to you now. If you are smart enough, you should be able to tell that ecommerce is a number game. If you have a website that generate USD50 per year from each customer, then you can have several other websites that generate the same amount of money from every single one of your customers. If you have 10 ecommerce sites that sell, then you are basically increasing your net-worth by 10 folds.

Add Me On FaceBook[

Add Me On Twitter[

SEO- The Effect by Google Search Personalisation

addykho — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 11:14:51 +0800

Google has been talking about personalisation of search results since 3 or4 years ago. But this is fully implemented only last month.

So what is Google Search Personalisation? Google, being the ‘Man In charge’ of the internet, make use of your web history (if you log in your Google account) or anonymous cookies on your computer (if you do not sign in your Google account) to study your surf pattern or behaviour and return you with the search results accordingly. In order words, the search results coming back to you and me may be different. Example, if you search for ‘France Vineyard’, your results may be different from mine if you have certain fond on one particular vineyard (example Vineyard ABC). You may have clicked on Vineyard ABC few times before and Google detected your preference and therefore rank Vineyard ABC on top of your SERPs. So you see how Google has evolved over the years. Watch the video below.

[YOUTUBE]<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/EKuG2M6R4VM&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/EKuG2M6R4VM&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>[/YOUTUBE]

So with these changes, Google has made the SEO more unpredictable and also more challenging. But it is not without solution. If you want to get rid of the noices which may affect your search result ranking, you just have to clear your web history or disable customisation. So you see, Google will ‘invade’ your privacy first, but they then allow you to opt out if you do not want Google to track your search pattern or history.

Salute- King Google!

7 Internet Marketing Strategies That DON'T Work

addykho — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:34:50 +0800

Traffic in the King. No Traffic No Sale No Money

We need traffic to our sites, be it your landing page or e-commerce site. There are many ways you can generate good traffics to your website that can be easily converted into sale. But there are also many ways you can WASTE your time trying to market your products:

1. Bloggers- There are many blogger communities online, i.e. IM Curtain, BloggerUnited, Blogged. It is a good way to introduce your blog to your fellow bloggers. But for marketing wise, it will take immense effort for you to participate in the blogger communities to get good and targeted traffics to your sites (I mean traffic that will buy from you). It is basically like throwing plenty of darts on to the dart board and hope that one will hit the bulleye.

2. Article Marketing- Article marketing used to be a big hit few years back. People submit their articles to article directories like EzineArticles.com or GoArticles.com and hoping other will pick up and being directed to your websites. Nowadays, article submission has turned into 'China'. Why 'China'? Because everyone just copy here and there. You can submit an article by modifying other people's articles and call it yours! Try to search for make money online in EzineArticles.com and see what is flooding in. Another drawback of the article submission is that you are only allowed to add your links at the resource box at the bottom of the article. There are very few people who will go and click on the links unless they really like your write up. The conversion rate is very low. But article submission with your link to those high PR sites will help in your Google ranking, no doubt about that. A lot of people say Content is King. So why not spend more time to write a good content for your websites to please Google:)

3. Social Media (Your Post) - Social site like Facebook is meant to be for 'Social'. People come here to look for friends, chat with friends and also for entertainment. It just doesn't work if you are trying to sell something that your groups of friends are not interested in. However, there is no one stopping you from sharing your passion with your friends and family there.

4. Social Media (Adverts)- How many of you actually go and click on the ads that appear on facebook? People are interested in you, not the ads that appear on the social site. People are here for fun. Not many people are here with their wallet ready in hand to BUY.

5. Direct Selling- There are many newbies trying to post everywhere like forums or comment on blog posts trying to sell their products. There is no relationship being built in between. Selling online needs trust. There is no different between selling online and offline. Don't you think it is easier to sell to friends who trust you than to a strangers? Making money online is all about building trust and relationship.

6. SPAM- How many spam mail do you receive per day? Have you ever gone to your spam mail box and check out what and who is sending you those emails? Do you really go and click and buy from Spammer? Even Twitter has become very Spammy nowadays. People that add you may be someone who is trying to sell you something. Do not try to spam to sell. You may be banned from certain websites for life! If you get banned by Google from using its services like adsense or many others, your internet career will basically finished! Do not offend the King.

7. Stop Reading - Last but not least, do not read from one place to another. I realise there are many people who is trying to make money online spending a LOT of time reading about SEO, email marketing, social media, blogging, copy writing, ebay....etc. But they never take action! Don't spend too much time online read and readi.. you must take action and doing something online. Or else you will end up like some lecturers teaching in the uni for their whole life, but without practical experience.

Add Me On FaceBook[

Add Me On Twitter[

5 FREE Tools To Kick Off Your 2010 Internet Busine

addykho — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 08:36:41 +0800

There is no RIGHT time to start your online business. If you want to make money online, ACT NOW!

There are a lot of people may be scratching their head do not know how to at least get their website up and running. To help you get organised and also to help you to kick start your million dollar online business (it is very possible), I try to dig into my head to see what I can think off, at least the FREE tools, for you to start making money online:

1. Website Design- WordPress.org or Nuv.com

If you have money, of course you can get a good designer to design a good website for you. But do you know that wordpress.org is a FREE software where you can download and configure it yourself and publish on your hosting. The beauty about Wordpress is that there are tons of free template where you can download and a lot of times they look much better than the design of your paid designer. WordPress is famous for its blog creation, some people even use WordPress as their e-commerce site.

If you really want to be hands-on and start designing your simple website, then you can try out www.nuv.com. This is comparable to Dreamweaver and also Frontpage.

2. CamStudio for Video Screen Capture Marketing - Camstudio.org

If you want to capture your screen and post a video online, you can try out Camstudio.org. In normal circumstance, if you want to purchase a more complete Camtasia Studio, it will cost you easily USD299. So why spend that sort of money if you have not even started making money online?

If you need some free audio recording software to pair your version of CamStudio, you can get one at audioflash.org and you can create very professional videos to help you generate traffic or to sell your product.

3. Graphic Creation - Gimp.org

Not every computer comes with PhotoShop software. Soometimes you have to pay more for it to come in a bundle with other computer software. I must admit PhotoShop is not so user friendly especially if you are a newbie. No doubt about that it is a very powerful graphic software.

But Gimp.org or called GNU Image Manipulation Program is a FREE program which is very easy to use, and it allows you to do photo retouching, image composition, create call to action buttons, minisite graphics, ads and more.

4. Payment Gateway- PayPal.com

There are many payment gateways available online. But a lot of them charge you money for signing up or even before you start accepting any payment. PayPal is not only the most popular payment gateway, it is also free to set up. You will only be charged certain fee when payment is made into your account.

5.Hosting-Homestead.com

There is no such thing as FREE and Unlimited hosting for your own domain name. But Homestead.com does provide a 30 days FREE hosting before you have to pay. Of course you can pull out if you think you are not happy with their service. And another beauty of Homestead.com is that it also provides you a lot of ready made websites for you to start your own business! So it is hassle free for those who really do not know and have no time to create a website. And hopefully before 30 days your business already bringing in some money to you.

You do not have to worry how to upload your website or file to the internet. There are always free FTP (file transfer protocol) provided by the hosting company.

I really hope this 5 FREE and simple tools will help to kick start you online business and bring you a lot of MONEY in year 2010. Feel free to buzz me if you need help in your internet business venture.

Add Me On FaceBook[

Add Me On Twitter[

Business 2010- Make Money Even You Are In Coma

addykho — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 12:17:30 +0800

Happy New Year again to everyone here! What is your new year resolution? If you want to know what people are hoping for in year 2010 around the world, please keep reading and I will show you the answer in a minute

So what business do you want to venture into in year 2010? I have many friends just hoping that the economy will get better so that they can keep their 9-5 job. And there are friends who are running businesses also wishing that the economy will get better and no more price hike for petrol so that general public will keep spending. So you see a lot of industries are directly affected by the economy outlook of year 2010.

No matter what businesses you venture into, there must be a:

1) Set up cost- How much money you have to invest to get the business running. You can start up a business investing nothing and making millions; you can also invest millions of dollar and making a lost. For example,to start up a reasonable car wash business, you will have to invest easily RM17K or USD5K; to start up a direct sale business like Amway, your start up cost is closed to nil. Or to start up a Franchise business like KFC, it may cost you RM1 mil locally in Malaysia. So depending how deep your pocket is, there are definitely many things you can look into.

2) Man Power and Technical capability- When you have a business, you need someone to work for you. Of course there are many businesses can be done lone ranger, like direct sale business. But a lot of times, you need to leverage and therefore you need some workers to come in. Sometimes you need technical workers if you are in certain niche business, like machine supplier etc. So think and brainstorm to see if you can acquire the manpower you need.

3) Targeted customers- You must know who is your targeted customers before you dump any money in your business. Who is there to PAY you! Are they desperate kind of customers like people looking for quick solution to their problems (the most typical example is patient looking for doctor), or are they have particular needs (for example, sailor looking for prostitute when they land onshore). So you must know your market. Study your market before you venture into the business.

4) Payment! - This is the most important part of any businesses. My personal advice, don't venture into business that will only pay you 30, 60 or even 90 days after. You will have cash flow problem if you are not financially strong. Nowadays people always say, Cash is King or Cash do the talking. So why not think about a business which you can collect money instantly after delivery of service or product. Or it is even better if you can get paid first even before you deliver anything.

5) Time constraint- Do you want to run a business which will tie you down 7 days a week? Or you want a business that you can go anywhere, anytime you like and it still makes money for you? Even better, if you can have a business that is still running by itself and generate passive income for you if you are in COMA! A lot of businesses we see in our daily life are businesses that really eat up our time.

6) Profit margin- So what is the profit margin you are looking for? In a competitive market, the margin is always very low. Example, if there are many people selling tooth brush in one area, do you think the profit margin will be high for the seller? Look at China, there are basically thousands of suppliers to the similar product, and the price is really competitive. Therefore, the suppliers will only entertain the buyer with Big volume so that they can make More money with small profit margin. This is not the market or business model I would recommend. Why don't you sell something that make you USD 50 each, rather than USD5. Then you will have to sell only 1 unit of the product and other people who are making USD5 will have to sell 10 units of the product to catch up with you. But if you are clever enough, you can sell your so called low margin product to somewhere else or other markets and make a lot more out of it... and this market is called Internet Market!

Like I said before, you can make money by going into any businesses. But after going through the list above, do you think there is such business that have the best of all the aspects above? Yes, it is internet business! Let me tell you why it is BEST:

1) Set up cost- You can set up a website at the cost of RM60 or USD20. A domain name cost you USD10 per year and the hosting is around USD5 per month. So how much you need you start a business? USD15!! That is it. Don't tell me you can't even afford to have the set up cost of internet business if you own a mobile or hand phone! Or if you have an Astro set in your house.

2) Man Power and Technical capability- For any online business, you can do it yourself at your own time. No recruitment needed unless you really grow big. And to set up a website, there are free software you can make use to come out with your own website within minutes if you know how to do it. If you really don't have time to do it, then you can always OUTSOURCE. There are thousands of programmer online waiting for you to give them projects at very low cost, i.e. 10, 20 USD .

3) Targeted customers- Internet is the most wonderful market. You can choose to target every single one in the world who comes across your website. Or you can also target customers from certain countries at your own choice! So you have the control of what you want and who you want to sell your product to. Internet is just like our society, made up of different types of businesses and customers. As mentioned in my previous post in in My Blog- www.addykho.com , it is digital era now and people shop online for basically anything they want. I did my grocery shopping online with Tesco when I was in the UK few years back. All the goods were delivered to your doorstep! On top of that, NO Begging for people to buy from you.

4) Payment!- For any online purchase, the buyer has to make the payment first before the seller deliver the service or product. So you see the beauty of it?? MONEY IN first! Huh.... No phone call to chase for payment. No debt collector needed

5) Time constraint- What is time constraint in Internet business?? You can go online anytime you want. Even if you don't go online, your website is still there doing the sales for you 24/7! So that is why I said, your business will continue to make money for you even if you are in COMA!

6) Profit margin- It is your call. If you are in the niche market, you can quote any price you want. For your information, one of the product that I am selling is making me a profit margin of 3000% !! That is the niche you should be looking for. When there is less competition, you can quote any price you want. And people in the desperate need will buy from you.

There are tons of things you can sell online. If you are good in creating information product and you have special knowledge in certain niche, for example you know HOW TO make Layered Cake, then you can come out with a HOW TO ebook or information and sell online. There will be people who wants to learn making layered cake don't mind paying for your ebook. What is your cost again? It is close to Nil and you are utilising your knowledge to help people to solve their problem. Information is Money online!

So, let's think over it again before you start any businesses. If you can find anything better than Internet Business, then go for it. If not, for a better life style and better control of your own time, you should start selling online in year 2010! If you are interested to make money online or to learn HOW TO make money online, feel free to sign up my newsletter and I will teach you HOW TO venture into internet business progressively. And come back to my blog frequently as I am always here to share with you the money making tips.

Ya, my promised to you just now, to check out what people really hope for in year 2010, you can go to 43things.com. If you know what most people are looking for in year 2010, you know what you shall sell online!

Google New Stun

addykho — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 16:47:31 +0800

Google has pulled another stun - Real Time Search.

Check this out the video here Google Real Time Search

Now you can 'see' your live football on Google!

American Bank Account for Non Resident

addykho — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 00:32:23 +0800

anyone can advise how to open an US bank account since we are based in Malaysia?
To sell in Amazon, they request you to have a US bank account so that they can pay to your bank account.