Wife, Daughter, Sister, Mother, Entrepreneur... From the Kitchen to the Office... Facts about Women and Home-Based Businesses

Copyright © 2006-2007 Ruby River


My years as an adolescent female were during the time when women were totally dependent upon their husbands financially and men were totally dependent on their wives domestically. This influence has had a positive and a negative impact.

Being an Internet home based business woman I want to support other women aspiring to become home-based business owners by offering some facts about their role in the American Dream. I want to encourage and inform where I can. Women have come a long way within the business arena due to desire and due to necessity.

We can have it all--a husband, children, friends and a successful business if we choose.

Go ahead, think and step outside of the familiar box. You are definitely not alone!

There are 143,368,343 females (50.9%) and 138,053,563 males (49.1%) living in the United States (excluding the US Armed Forces overseas.)

Recent facts about American women business owners:

Women own approximately 66% of home-based businesses, numbering 3.5 million and provide full or part-time employment for an estimated 14 million people. In today's economy, home-based businesses are a growth industry.

The number of women-owned businesses has grown faster than the national average by 20%.

73% of women-owned businesses are home-based businesses.

Between 68% and 70% of women's home based businesses will survive over a three-year period.

By 2010 women are expected to control $1 trillion, or 60% of the country's wealth, according to research conducted by Business Week and Gallup.

Women business owners' economic clout and business-related purchases continue to rise. It is estimated that we will spend $33.5 billion this year on telecommunications equipment, enhanced services and Internet access, according to the Insight Research Corporation.

Women make up 51% of the population but spend more than 80% of the money, including purchases of athletic shoes, home improvement products, new homes, furniture and medical and health care needs.

Women earn $.77 for every $1.00 men earn when their job is outside the home.

Four in 10 (39%) women business leaders are involved in the international marketplace.

Women entrepreneurs are more likely than men business owners to place value on business relationships and on information.

Women business owners are more likely than their male counterparts to seek out the opinions and input of others. Education:

It is projected that by 2011 women will outnumber men in undergraduate programs by 10.2 million to 7.4 million. Women will earn 59% of the master's degrees and 60% of the doctoral degrees for the years 2005-2006. This has more than doubled from 20 years earlier according to Business and Professional Women's Foundation.

Motherhood/Marriage:

82.5 million are the estimated number of mothers of all ages in the United States (unpublished data), with 1.9 children being the average number of children women have given birth to between the ages of 40-44. This is down from 3.1 children since the Census Bureau began collecting data in 1976.

There are 5.8 million stay-at-home moms nationwide.

There are 60 million unmarried (widowed, divorced or never married) women nationwide.

AND

1.7 million women are military veterans. Did You Know.....?

Women entrepreneurs' backgrounds are:

Management 25%

Sales 21%

Accounting/finance 18%

Marketing 6%

Engineering/manufacturing 4%

Human Resources 3%

Other 23% What women like about being entrepreneurs:

Being their own boss 20%

Setting their own hours 17%

Controlling their destiny 17%

Pleasing customers 16%

Making decisions 15%

Achieving goals 10%

Thanks for allowing me to share and learn.

The information in this article was acquired from these sources: Fact Monster, U.S. Census Bureau, Road & Travel Magazine, Women's Business Owners Advisory Link, and American Fact Finder.

About The Author:

Ruby River is the proud owner of an established, hybrid, Internet home based business system that cuts through the hype and presents a genuine opportunity to exceed your income goals working from home. Exclusively for motivated, entrepreneur minded individuals, visit http://www.livegreatlife.com

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5 Essential Marketing Tools For Starting A Successful Internet Home

The Shadow of 5 Originally uploaded by see what you want to see.

Copyright © 2007 Titus Hoskins


Lets start with this one cold hard fact: creating a successful Internet home business is not an easy task. It takes hard work and a whole lot of strategic planning. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably trying to sell you something!

Building any solid business takes hard work and planning. Why should creating a successful business on the Internet be any different? Just because you're dealing with computers and a world wide marketplace doesn't mean it will be easy to construct and build a successful enterprise. It will take some work and effort on your part.

However, knowing what tools to use and some vital marketing knowledge will make your task much easier and much quicker. The Internet does have its own unique tools and methods which you should be familiar with before you start any web business. Complete knowledge of these marketing tools and information will greatly increase your chances of creating a successful Internet business.

1. Domain Name/Website

You must start with a Domain Name - most marketers either make their domain something catchy and short that visitors will quickly remember such as Digg.com, BestBuy.com, Yahoo!.com or they will directly tie in their main product or service in the domain such as Hotels.com, YouTube.com, Carloans.com and so on.

Your domain must be attached to a well designed and easy to navigate website. Preferably one that is professionally designed and equipped with all the commercial tools you need like a shopping cart and payment system. Like any business, you must try to accept all the major credit cards and display all the proper trust building icons such as 'Better Business Bureau'...

Most professional online marketers keep graphics to a minimum and highlight their main benefit or product in a headline at the top of your webpage. You only have a few seconds to impress your prospective customer so summarize your whole site in one short benefit-loaded phrase or slogan. Be precise and direct in your presentation.

2. Keywords/SEO Strategy

Keywords, what surfers type into search engines to find what they're seeking on the web, are the real cornerstones of any online website or business. You must find out the exact phrases and words people are using to find your product or service and target these keywords with your online site. Create pages and content on your site to draw in this targeted traffic. As a general rule, the more targeted your traffic/visitors are, the greater your conversion rate, i.e. the more sales you will make.

Professional online marketers do keyword research and a whole lot of testing to find the right high converting keywords that virtually guarantees sales. These marketers find the buyers at the right stage in the buying process, where customers already have their minds made up and are ready to buy. For example, someone searching for 'cars' is not as targeted as someone searching for '2007 Ford Mustang with Shelby GT exterior design'.

Savvy marketers use professional keyword research software such as Keyword Elite or use such sites as GoodKeywords or Overture (Yahoo! Search Marketing) to find the number of monthly searches for the keyword phrases they target with their sites. Many online businesses outsource their keyword/link building to SEO specialists who do this job for them. These firms develop a long term SEO strategy of building links to targeted keyword phrases, thus building a successful business in the process.

3. AutoResponder/Opt-in Lists

The AR or AutoResponder is one of the most essential tools to building a successful online business. You must set up an Opt-in system on your site to capture the contact information of your visitors, this will increase your traffic and dramatically improve your sales. It has been proven that it takes 5 to 6 follow-up emails before a customer buys your product or service.

It just makes good business sense. You must build a list of potential customers for your business. The AutoResponder makes this possible and is unique to the online world. You simply place a form on all your webpages to capture the name and email address of your visitors for further follow-up and contact. Instead of a surfer visiting your site just once, you draw them back again and again with special offers, deals or a daily/weekly newsletter.

The key element that makes the AutoResponder such a powerful marketing tool is trust! The Internet is still a very distrustful place. You simply use the AutoResponder and your follow-up system to build trust and a sense of loyalty from your potential customers. Once this trustful relationship is built, running a profitable business online will be easy.

4. RSS/Blogs

Blogs and RSS feeds are essential online business tools. As we saw above, building a trustful relationship is very important to doing business online. Keeping an online Blog or daily journal is another way of building trust and keeping in contact with your customers or clients. Everyone likes to be a part of a group, a member of the club - having a company blog will help keep everyone a member of your business.

Blog and RSS feeds are a way to instantly connect with your visitors or customers. Podcasting and broadcatching (video casting) are excellent ways to more personally connect with your clients. Videos are all the rage right now and savvy marketers are using them in their advertising and marketing. Why should Google and YouTube had all the fun?

RSS (Really Simple Syndication, original acronym stood for Rich Site Summary) will get your sales message out to your customers quickly. With the upcoming release of the RSS powered Windows Vista expect RSS to play an even greater role in your whole Internet experience. Make sure you have at least one RSS feed on your online business site.

5. Articles/Syndication Software

People want information first, products second. Regardless of what you're selling or the type of online business you want to create, always keep in mind potential customers want information first and then the sales pitch. Give people good solid information and they will more likely buy from you. You must pre-sell your online business or product.

One of the best ways to pre-sell is by using articles. Simple informative, how-to, 500-700 word articles on all aspects of your online business. Place these articles on your own site and syndicate them around the web by using article distribution software or by submitting to such online article directories as Ezinearticles.com, Goarticles.com, Ideamarketers.com and Articleally.com - make sure you place a link back to your online business within the resource box at the end of each article.

Articles are an effective way of drawing very targeted customers to your site or business. Each article is a marketing tool in its own right. Create a whole army of these articles and you will see a marked increase in online visitors and customers.

As mentioned before building a successful online business is not an easy task. It does take some strategic planning and a whole lot of marketing tools with the knowledge to use them properly. But anyone can create a successful home business with the right equipment and the right attitude. You now have some excellent starting points, the next step is really up to you.

About The Author:

The author is a full-time online marketer who has numerous niche websites, including two sites on Internet Marketing. For the latest and most effective web marketing tools try: Internet Marketing Tools If you're trying to start a web business and don't know where to begin, why not try these excellent free training manuals and videos: Free Marketing Courses http://www.bizwaremagic.com Copyright © 2007 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

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Stop Reinventing The Internet Marketing Wheel

Copyright © 2006-2007 Willie Crawford


There are a lot of really brilliant people building businesses in the Internet marketing niche. Many of them not only have great technical skills but they're also "doers!" At the same time, I have watched many people who were much more brilliant than I am accomplish only a tiny fraction of what I have. I often sat scratching my head, and wondering what kept them from achieving major breakthroughs.

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks...

The difference is that when I see something with a lot of potential, I tap into my "Million Dollar Rolodex" and see if this is something someone is already working on. I "sniff around" to see if someone is already "running with" my project idea.

Others see the tremendous potential in a new technology, service, or craze, and they set about inventing their own system for capitalizing on this potential. The problem with the second approach is that the person often takes on such a monumental task that they frequently get bogged down in the little details, and never get the project finished. They never get the product to market. Then, one day they look around, and someone else has fielded THEIR idea.

The big secret of course is to stop "re-inventing the wheel" and to stop operating in a vacuum. It's very UNLIKELY that someone else doesn't have an idea similar to yours. Track down these people and work with them to combine your talents and get the product fielded in a flash!

You connect with people whom you can discuss your ideas with and partner with at seminars, and through online sites set up to facilitate such exchanges. One such site is The Internet Marketing Inner Circle. Inside this membership site you:

Can organize lunch and dinner meeting with "movers and shakers"

Set up joint ventures

Introduce yourself, your interests and your projects to others who probably have similar interests

Listen to interviews by the top online marketers who reveal to you how they achieved major online success, and how you can form partnerships and joint ventures with them

You can join The Internet Marketing Inner Circle at: http://TheInternetMarketingInnerCircle.com

If you're looking for live events to network at, and to meet potential joint venture partners at, the most comprehensive listing of Internet marketing seminars, conferences, and bootcamps that you will find is at: http://InternetMarketingSeminarSchedule.com

Here are a few quick examples of products that I've actually watched develop or even helped to develop over the past six months that illustrate my point, and that will be six or seven-figure projects:

Traffic Geyser is a service that allows you to upload your videos to their server, and from there optimize the videos, and then upload them to the top 30 video hosting sites such as YouTube and Google Video.

Video is hot! It does generate sales and traffic to a site when done correctly. As the cost of bandwidth goes down, and as high-speed connectivity spreads, video is fast becoming the norm. Lots of people saw this and many busily started uploading their videos to these sites.

I did.

However, I tapped into a service that allows me to do it in 1/20th the time. That means I can get 20 times as much work done in the same time as someone who's busily creating their own system, and who is in the meantime doing it the old-fashioned way.

Check out Traffic Geyser, created by a few of my online friends, at: http://VideoReallyRocks.com

Another example is a system, developed by my friend Louis Burleson, that allows you to build a list of "buyers" by using private label rights. Louis has taken some proprietary software, integrated it with a system for both building a list and actually selling product that he has private label rights to... all in one effort. It's a really nice system.

There are undoubtedly thousands of people out there trying to figure out how to build their lists, how to market those PLR products that they have, and how to automate the whole thing.

I met Louis at a seminar, had him show me his system, and now I don't have to invent anything. Louis incidentally was interviewed for The Internet Marketing Inner Circle members. You can check out Louis' "knock your socks off" system at: http://NoHypeInternetMarketing.com/TheKey/

The common thread in the examples above is that they were developed by people who actually did a lot of the brainstorming at seminars and conferences. Another common thread is that they solved obvious problems.

Another product born out of solving a common problem and out of a partnership formed at a seminar is at: http://TrafficGenerationTechniquesThatWork.com


This is the 2 1/2 hour audio recording, and PDF transcript, from a teleseminar on easy to implement, low-cost methods of generating website traffic. The product reveals the very best traffic generating ideas of three seasoned marketers, to include myself :-)

The product teaches how to generate web site traffic, something that every webmaster needs to know. As you listen to the audio, you can actually feel the synergistic energy developing as three minds cover a laundry list of proven ways to generate web site traffic. It's also obvious that neither of the individuals could have produced a product this in-depth by working all alone. It was by not trying to reinvent the wheel, and by not operating in a vacuum, that a hot product was developed that is destined to be a six-figure earner in 2007.

At this point, you should be asking yourself if you spend too much time reinventing the wheel and operating in a vacuum. You need to consider the very real probability that while you "hammer away" at a project, you could probably do it a lot quicker and easier if you just partnered up with the right person. In-fact,

without partnering up with the right person, there's even the very real probability that you'll never even finish your project. My research has shown that the majority of projects and products started in the Internet marketing niche are never even finished.

That brings up another reason that you want to partner up with someone. When you have a partner who is depending upon you, it helps to keep you focused and accountable. If you don't finish your part , or get sidetracked you let someone else down. That generally will keep us moving forward more than just the threat of letting ourselves down. That's a BIG secret to success in Internet marketing.

About The Author:

Willie Crawford has taught thousands how to build successful online businesses since late-1996. His membership site contains over 40 interviews of leading online marketers sharing their views on "How To Break Into The Internet Marketing Inner Circle." You can access those powerful and shocking interviews at: http://TheInternetMarketingInnerCircle.com

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