Tips To Build A Profitable Online Business

Many online businesses are not profitable due to the fact that they do not have a plan in place to generate quality targeted traffic and convert those website visitors into paying customers.

To build a profitable online business here are five things that you can do.

1. Many Internet marketers make the mistake of focusing on features and not benefits, so create a marketing plan that concentrates on the benefits your potential customers will receive.

Benefits are what your product does specifically for your prospective customer, whereas features are what your product has. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes when you plan your online advertising and focus on benefits which will turn a website visitor into a buying frame of mind.

2. Instead of following the majority of the internet marketing crowd, who spend a lot of time selling when a visitor arrives of their site, rather pre-sell your prospect on what the product offers before you ask them to buy.

A website visitor customer needs information to put them into a buying mood, hence the reason you see so many pre-sell and review web pages written about affiliate products today. You can use the same strategy to sell your own products more online whether you are an affiliate marketer or not.

3. Ensure that the products you are selling are always in demand. For long term success there are certain markets that people will always spend money in.

Golfers spend a small fortune trying to improve their game. Weight loss and diet products sell well online every day. Information products that solve a problem are a potential product in demand.

Keep your eyes peeled and look around you to see what is in demand. Check the bookstores for the best selling books a have a look at what is being advertised on the TV.

Google Trends will reveal what people are searching for with the top search engine. In order to build a profitable online business you need to sell more online by offering products that are currently in demand.

4. By offering multiple ways for your customer to pay will increase your profitability. Be sure to offer PayPal as this is a fast way to process payments and they accept major credit cards too. It is a good idea to offer a second payment processor to cater for those who are unable to use PayPal. You can also allow people to pay you by check, bank wire or COD if your product lends itself to this type of payment processing. You must make it easy for people to do business with you in order to sell more online.

5. Start advertising your products in multiple ways and your online business will become more profitable. You will never increase your profit without quality traffic and to do this you need an advertising campaign that stretches far and wide.


About the Author:
Cynthia Minnaar runs her own Profitable Online Business full-time from home. She invites you to subscribe to her free Newsletter and receive free internet income training.

5 Ways To Harness The Power Of Article Marketing

One thing for sure is that the power of article marketing remains constant whilst the internet moves forward at a remarkable pace.

The benefits of tapping into the power of article marketing are enormous. You can be rewarded with high page rankings from the search engines, which will result in free targeted traffic, plus free traffic from the article directories too, if you produce articles rich with keywords.

This article will provide you with five tips that are guaranteed to improve your article writing so that you can then experience the power of article marketing.

As with anything planning is important, so firstly start off by writing a long list of keywords for the niche that your online business is in. Spend time doing your research to build a list of quality keywords.

To put together a targeted list you can find keywords by using free keyword research tools available online such as Wordtracker and Google. Knowing what keywords to build your article around is the foundation for writing a good article.

Now we move onto the second and extremely important step in article writing which is the title. The more you practice the better your titles will become. To get some ideas have a look at the titles of some of the articles in the article directories.

When you see article titles that really catch your eye and make you want to read more jot them down or open Notepad on your computer and create a list of titles that will give you inspiration for future use. Be sure to have your keywords in your title to attract the attention of the search engines and word it so no searcher can resist clicking on the title to read more.

Thirdly, your first paragraph of your article is of utmost importance. Today, people speed read as time is short and precious and so this is your chance to capture their attention. Keep the paragraph short, but power-pack it with words which will make them want to read your entire article.

Fourthly, you will reap the rewards of focusing on writing the best article you can. If necessary, take the time to do some research. Your article does not have to be long, but rather precise and to the point. Instead of being long-winded make good use of your words.

Lastly, there are thousands of article directories on the internet but do not waste your time trying to submit to them all. Rather choose the best ones with a high Page Rank to submit your articles to.

Ezinearticles.com is the top article directory on the internet which gets a lot of traffic, so your article marketing results would improve if you consistently just submitted your articles to them. Alternatively, you could consider using an online article submission service such as SubmitYourArticle.com which includes the option of having your article submitted to 6 top article directories including Ezinearticles.com

To sum up then, you will see improved article marketing results if you take action on these five tips. Focus on writing good quality articles and be selective where you submit them and you will harness the power of article marketing and benefit for a long time to come.

About the Author:
Cynthia Minnaar runs her own Online Home Business Ideas website full-time from home. She invites you gather more article marketing tips from her step-by-step internet marketing strategies guide.

4 Internet Marketing Secrets For Online Home Business Success

To achieve online home business success requires that you become an expert at promoting something on the internet. You will need to master basic internet marketing techniques and here we discuss 4 internet marketing methods that successful online business owners use.

Online home business success will come to those who excel at internet marketing techniques in order to promote something on the internet. The internet provides millions of potential customers who are looking daily for products or services to buy.

Advertising on the internet is far cheaper that using the old traditional methods of promotion such as direct mail, TV, radio and the print media. For online home business success you still need to master basic internet marketing methods.

Here are 4 internet marketing tips that the successful online business owners use consistently.

1. Building back links to your website is the most important thing that you need to do to achieve long term success online. The internet is made up of millions of links and back links are gathered when your website address appears on another webmaster’s page.

The more back links that show on the internet pointing to your website will enable your site to achieve higher rankings in the search engines. You can build back links in various ways and some of the most popular internet marketing methods used by professionals to get thousands of back links include article marketing, forum posting, exchanging links with other sites, social bookmarking, blogging and leaving comments on other blogs.

2. Successful online home business owners will focus on creating an opt-in email marketing list. A large email list of qualified subscribers can generate thousands of dollars for you monthly.

It is therefore important to focus on using every opportunity to build your list. You can do this by offering such things as free ebooks or a free report on a splash page in exchange for your website visitors name and email address. You could also offer a free subscription to a Newsletter and place sign-up box high up (above the fold) on your main website.

3. To achieve online home business success you will need to do more than just free or nearly free advertising. Take advantage of the paid advertising methods too.

You can do this by setting up a pay-per-click advertising campaign with the major search engines such as Yahoo or Google. Other paid advertising methods you could consider are purchasing banner ads or text links, solo ads or ezine advertising.

4. Branding is part of achieving online business success so you need to make yourself known online. There are many discussion forums on the internet and by joining those that relate to the theme of your website is one way to get known as an expert in your field. You will develop your credibility by joining in the discussions and offering advice in your field of expertise.

It does require skill to become an expert forum marketer however with practice you can master it. It is worth persisting as it is an excellent free internet marketing method that can contribute greatly to your online home business success.

To sum up then, online home business success is achieved by those who consistently work at improving themselves and mastering their chosen internet marketing methods. This is time consuming, takes a lot of effort and hard work but if you are willing to do it the financial rewards are fantastic.

About the Author:
Cynthia Minnaar runs her own successful Online Home Business full-time from home. Visit her Internet Marketing Guide for more tips and internet marketing methods that work.

Online Business - Ideas To Prevent Stagnation And Encourage Growth

Has your online business experienced a lack of growth or is it perhaps going backwards? If you are not doing the right things these are not uncommon occurrences so let’s discuss 4 ideas to move your online business up a level or two.

It is not uncommon for an online business to stagnate or even take a downward drop if you are not doing the right things. Nearly every online business experiences a lack of growth at some point.

Let's take a look at 4 ideas that you can implement to increase growth and take your online business up to the next level.

So let's get started - have you thought about becoming an online detective? Very little is hidden on the internet so you may as well take advantage of being able to easily find out what your competitors are up to! You could start off by finding out what sites are competing with yours by typing your main keyword phrase into the search engines and then take a good look at the businesses that appear on the first page of the search results.

Things to look out for are their marketing strategies, what products are they offering and at what prices, the general look of the website, incentives offered and so on. Have a look to see if they are offering incentives such as free ebooks to purchasers or a free newsletter to subscribers? This exercise will provide you with ideas on how you can improve your own online business.

Secondly, you need to understand your customers and know what they are looking for. The internet provides many places that you can find prospective customers. One reason for the lack of growth in your business could be that you are not reaching the full potential of your target market.

As an example, social media is something that many people are involved with online in one form or another. It is important therefore to market your business in multiple ways online in order to experience growth.

Are you meeting new potential customers through the social networks and bringing your business alive with the use of video? Are you making regular posts on your blog and do you invite your readers to leave comments, which will give you the opportunity to interact with them?

The internet changes rapidly and those marketers who do not keep up with the pace will experience a lack of growth. To get your online business to the next level be in a position where you can reach out to as many potential customers as possible by being involved in multiple markets.

Thirdly, whilst knowledge is a great thing, it is totally useless if you do not put it into action. So as you do your research you need to be making notes of your findings and putting together a strategy that you can implement to take your online business to the next level.

Your business will in time move to the next level if you daily work at implementing your new strategy. You need to implement strategies such as viral marketing, social networking, video blogging, trading links with high PR sites and any other methods that your competitors are using.

Last but not least, it is really important that you keep track of the progress your online business is making and when you discover what is working then put in extra effort and do more of it.

If you not getting the results that you hoped with a particular method, then find other ideas to implement.

You will never go wrong if you continually add new and unique content to your website in a variety of ways. The key things that you can monitor and see results from are unique content and back links and these ideas will take your online business to the next level.

About the Author:
Cynthia Minnaar runs her own Online Business Ideas website full-time from home. She invites you gather more marketing ideas to take your business to the next level from her internet marketing guide.

Your Online Home Business And Time Management

Bearing in mind that time is something we can never get back, here we look at ways you can to optimize your use of it so that you can achieve more with your online home business.

If you are running an online home business, time management is important in order to make the best use of the few hours you have available if you are part-time or alternatively to make sure you don't waste the many hours that you do have available to build your internet business if you are working full-time from home.

It will pay off to learn how to use time wisely and to your advantage as it is not something you can get back and so is very precious. Running an online home business involves many different tasks and there are also many distractions on the internet, so time management skills will help you to make the best use of the hours you have available.

Let's have a look at some key time management areas that you, as an online business owner, should be focusing on.

Most importantly, you need to know why you are running a home business online or even thinking of starting one before you can even begin thinking about time management. What is your main goal? What is the biggest motivating factor that is going to drive you to work on your home business every day? What is going to spur you on through thick and thin, challenges, disappointments and set-backs? What is going to ensure that you never ever quit?

From my own personal point of view I hated working for a boss and wanted desperately to quit the corporate world. That is what drove me to work on my Online Home Business at every opportunity I had. My biggest motivating factor now, having achieved that goal, is to ensure that I never have to go back to a job or work for a boss again.

Only once you have determined what your "why" is will you be able to move on to setting short and medium-term goals to enable you to achieve your ultimate goal i.e. your "why".

Your goals should be set out in a logical format with daily stepping stones for your short-term goals which will enable you to achieve your medium-term goals which will keep you focused on achieving your ultimate goal. It is important to set realistic and achievable goals as well as check your progress on a daily basis to ensure you are utilizing your time effectively. Spend some time brainstorming and putting your goals down on paper and review them monthly.

Having determined what your goals are, you then need to know what you need to do every day in order to achieve them and you can do this by creating "To-Do Lists". These lists will help keep you stay focused on what you need to do to build your online home business. Your first To-Do List should be your daily one and tick off each task once you have completed it.

It is important to prioritize your tasks namely: important and urgent. You will find that some tasks are not urgent but they are important. Also if you are a procrastinator, what helped me was making sure that I did the tasks I was putting off first then I knew they were out of the way and I found myself becoming far more productive.

A second To-Do List that you need to create is for those tasks that need to be done on a weekly basis. For larger projects that take more time, but are not particularly urgent, start a third To-Do List to ensure that you do not forget them.

Aim to do the urgent tasks, which may well not be business building tasks, as quickly as possible enabling you to then concentrate on the important tasks.

If you are part-time you may well find that you just do not have enough time to do all that you need to do in order to achieve your daily goals. Delegation or outsourcing is a vital part of time-management and so you need to make a list of what tasks you could outsource. This will save you a huge amount of time and enable you to concentrate on other productive tasks.

As an online home business owner you could consider outsourcing such tasks as the writing and distribution of articles, website design, submitting your site to the web directories, blogging, etc.

If you already run your online home business full-time it is still important to set goals and make "To-Do Lists" as it is so easy to get distracted and waste time working in your own home environment.

If you get into the habit of adopting these time management skills you will find that you will be able to earn an online income and ultimately achieve your online home business goals quicker.

About the Author:
Cynthia Minnaar runs her own Online Home Business full-time from home. She invites you to subscribe to her Online Business Ideas newsletter and receive free internet income training.

Internet Based Business Recession Marketing Strategies

Is your internet based business recession proof? Do you have a recession proof marketing strategy in place? Here we discuss ways that you can build a recession proof business during the recession.

The effects of the 2008 recession are being felt worldwide and to protect an internet based business, we as internet marketers need to ensure we have a recession proof marketing strategy in place.

Just because a world-wide recession has struck does not mean that it is a bad time to make an income online with an internet based business.

We all react in different ways when a recession sets in. How we react all depends on our own unique situation. Some cut back totally on luxuries, others opt for a cheaper version, but we don't stop purchasing goods. Some products even experience record highs during a recession. In order to respond to the new situation, it is just a matter of altering course and mapping out a recession marketing strategy.

Understanding what people are interested in buying and why they need or want to buy it is what an online recession marketing strategy would then involve. This is even more important during a recession than in a boom and is the key to ensuring that you have a recession proof internet based business.

People feel good during a boom. As people are assured that their jobs are safe and so is their next pay check, they feel rich and confident and don't mind spending because they have money available. It is during these times that most people can make money from their own internet based business.

However, it is a different story during a recession. A great many people cut back and no longer buy luxuries as they are worried about their financial situation. The idea of purchasing luxury items such as large appliances or new cars are put on hold and people tend to make do with what they have got and tend to repair rather than buy new items.

During these times of financial uncertainty people search for cheaper alternatives in the form of used goods, spare parts, DIY solutions, cheaper food sources, they eat at home rather than dine out and any other products that can help reduce their monthly expenditure.

This change in shopping behavior offers internet based businesses some clear recession marketing opportunities, some examples being:

1. Financial Counseling and Basic Financial Advice: You'll be surprised how many people spend like crazy with a credit card but actually have no idea of how to manage credit card debt. Others have no idea how to prepare a household budget. Many more will require financial counseling during the recession as these people are in desperate need of help right now.

2. Informative How-To eBooks: Something that will be very popular during a recession is cheap information products that teach people practical skills that they can use to save or even make money or explain in detail how to survive during a recession. This gives you the opportunity to either write your own ebook or search for high quality packages that offer rebranding rights so that you can offer them as your own.

3. Don't forget about eBay: As people look to raise money by selling off things they no longer require and others look for bargains or second-hand goods to save money, it is very likely that eBay will experience growth during the recession. The opportunity to start your own full-time internet based business awaits you at eBay.

This gives internet marketers the opportunity to promote eBay related affiliate programs or offer eBay advice and business solutions.

4. There are those that are so keen to start their own internet based business but feel that they just cannot afford the expense. There is a great opportunity for you to reach out and offer advice on how to make an income online on a shoestring budget. They will be excited to learn that the start-up costs of an internet business are minimal and will be keen to know more about free blogs, free affiliate programs, free article marketing strategies and free traffic exchanges.

When you see the opportunity that a recession presents, it is possible to build a recession proof internet based business and make an online income out of recession proof marketing.

About the Author:
Cynthia Minnaar runs her own recession proof Internet Based Business full-time from home. She invites you to find out more about how to start an internet business and recession proof marketing strategies.

Ideas To Combine Networking With Your Online Home Business

To achieve the desired results from your online home business means paying attention to the small important things that we so often neglect. Networking with your website visitors is one of them so here are some ideas on how to interact with them.

Let's have a look at a few of the opportunities that you have to interact on a personal level with your website visitors and customers.

As Blogs are so popular you will find most people do have one but they fail to utilize them fully. For example are you inviting your readers to leave comments?

This is a popular internet marketing method so it is common practice to visit and leave comments on blogs. Have you ever taken the time to email those who post comments and thank them for their post or offer assistance to a query about your home business online?

This very often opens the doors for further communication as many people are often really surprised and touched to receive a personal email as they are so used to impersonal auto-responder messages.

Usually whenever anyone joins your online home business or purchases a product from you, you will be notified of their email address. By sending a thank you or welcome email gives you the opportunity to open up the communication channels and the exchange of ideas could be extremely valuable.

Come out from your website and stop hiding behind your auto-responder and put the "You" back into doing business online. Don't under-estimate how huge the impact on your home business could be.

By opening up these channels of communication you will be surprised at the value and benefits that you can provide each other. Just a simple email from a post on your blog could create a lucrative business relationship.

How frustrated do you get when you send an email and never receive a response? Replying to emails you receive, no matter how insignificant they may seem, is just common courtesy and certainly something that should never be overlooked.

If you invite people to email you from your website, an advert or an auto-responder email then at least take a few minutes to write a decent reply to them. Don't put you reputation at risk by writing short and abrupt emails. Where this simple task could lead you, you will never know.

A FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section on your website will really help visitors, however, they may email you for more online home business information and this is where you need to offer honest advice and respond to the best of your ability.

Networking could certainly benefit your online home business in the future if you implement these ideas on how to communicate and network with your website visitors.

About the Author:

Cynthia Minnaar runs her own Online Home Business Ideas website full-time from home. She invites you to subscribe to her free Online Business Ideas Newsletter and receive free internet income training

Affiliate Marketing Business: 2 Key Steps To Make Online Income

As affiliate marketers, many of us are not making full use of our potential, so it is important every now and again to take a step back and really analyze your own business when it comes to making online income with an affiliate marketing business.

Life is a “selling game” and the same applies if you want to make online income as an affiliate marketer. You need to constantly be selling with whatever approach you choose to take and make a point of mastering it.

When it comes to affiliate marketing there are 2 important steps that you must take in order to make online income with an affiliate marketing business.

Firstly, do not take the lazy way out and just use the affiliate website provided free by the merchant. You will be on the road to success if you get your own domain name and create your own website where you will be able to provide your website visitors with the benefits of the products or services that you are marketing.

Initially of course this is extra work, but website visitors are looking for information before they buy and this is what makes pre-selling an important part of generating sales and making online income with an affiliate marketing business.

Website visitors are not looking for a sales pitch. They want to still deal with people to a certain extent and if you can relate to your visitors in the form of pre-selling your product or service in your own words and offering your own experience of the product, this will make a huge difference to the amount of online income you will make.

Secondly, promoting your affiliate marketing business is the only way you will get visitors to your website. This is where many affiliate marketers fail as they just do not take the time to master the skills to attract large numbers of targeted visitors to their site.

We would all be more successful if generating targeted website visitors was as easy as it is made out to be. It is a fact that you will have to take time to learn and master advertising and marketing skills before you will ever make good online income as an internet affiliate marketer.

There are many different ways to market a business online and so mastering the skills required takes a good deal of time. This is not something you can achieve over night, it can take months. Even if you choose pay-per-click advertising you will need to learn how to do this if you don’t want to lose a lot of money. It takes time to learn how to choose your keywords, test your adverts and achieve a good click through rate that produces profitable results.

These two important steps are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes making online income with an affiliate marketing business.

There is so much more involved but if you start off by creating your own website to pre-sell your affiliate products, hone your marketing skills and spend time marketing your site in order to attract large numbers of daily targeted visitors you will make online income with your affiliate marketing business.

About the Author:
Cynthia Minnaar makes online income with her own Affiliate Marketing Business full-time from home. She invites you to visit her site for tips on marketing your business on the internet

Ways To Reduce The Running Costs Of Your Online Business

I don't know about you but since the world financial crisis our local currency has really weakened against the US Dollar. This of course is great when banking the Dollar checks I earn, but as I live in South Africa paying out in South African Rands has become very expensive.

I thought I would share with you details of what I have done to reduce the running costs of my online home business and make it even more recession-proof.

South Africans are able to open a PayPal account and make payments through it but cannot withdraw the cash - but that is not a problem.

Firstly, I have started marketing a few extra products on my website that payout via PayPal. This way I can build up a balance in my PayPal account to pay my monthly dues in Dollars as opposed to paying with my credit card in Rands.

My hosting company, Host4Profit offer the facility of paying with PayPal if you pay 2 months in advance, so rather than pay with Rands through my credit card I have opted now for this option.

I have ensured that where possible I have ticked the option to have my monthly subscriptions deducted from my affiliate commissions prior to payment being sent to me by cheque, e.g. SFI and Empowerism.

So now the only payment that I make in South African Rands is my monthly subscription to the company I use to distribute my articles, SubmitYourArticle as they unfortunately do not have the PayPal option.

These changes have resulted of course in reduced credit card charges as well.

Hopefully these tips will help any of you who are also experiencing a weakening of your local currency against the Dollar and looking for ways to recession-proof your business.

Generate Streams Of Internet Income

As consumer demands change almost daily, rather than rely on one form of online income, it is a good idea to offer a variety of products on your online business website which in turn will generate streams of internet income for you.

My latest articles give you ideas of how you can develop your online business website into one that produces multiple streams of internet income

Read the entire article here:
Ideas To Generate Streams Of Internet Income From An Online Business

Start An Online Business: Build One Or Buy One?

To start an online business from scratch may just not appeal to some people and so for those who have some money available there is always the option of buying an existing online business.

There are pros and cons associated with buying any business so you need to do your due diligence and carefully consider if you want to rather invest to start an online business of your own.

To help you decide whether you want to buy an existing online business or not here are a few tips to consider.

A great benefit of buying an existing online business is that you will have inherited an existing website with all the basics such as domain name, an email address, auto-responder, graphics and it may even have a blog set up, meaning that most of the groundwork has already been done.

Traffic is the lifeblood of an online business and so it is of major importance. So instead of having to use your time to get the business set up you can concentrate on honing your internet marketing skills to drive targeted traffic to your site.

Buying an online business does not necessarily mean that it is a high traffic website. Even if it is you will still have to focus on driving targeted traffic on a consistent basis.

Depending on the quality of the online business purchased you could also benefit from the existing traffic rank, Google page rank, back-links as well as the customer base. It may also be running at a profit as well.

Branding your business online is important and this may already be created in a purchased online business. However, you can also start branding yourself as well by adding a picture of yourself to the web pages and an about me page too.

You may find that you may have to make adjustments to existing graphics if you intend branding your online business around yourself, so that is something else to think about.

Even though an online business is relatively cheap and easy to start from scratch, buying an existing one is also not expensive when you compare it to what a traditional business costs to purchase. The price of purchasing an online business will depend on a lot of factors and they range from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.

There are sites on the internet dedicated to the sale of online businesses, some are sold by auction or you can even find some advertised in the forums. You could join a forum related to the theme of the business you intend to purchase and make a post expressing your interest in purchasing an online business. Many online transactions and online business sales take place in forums.

Once you have found an online business that you are interested in purchasing you must still look thoroughly into it and do a full due diligence. However, these are just a few tips to bear in mind when deciding whether you want to start an online business from scratch, expand your existing business or purchase an existing business.

About the Author:

Cynthia Minnaar runs her own Online Business full-time from home and she invites you to learn more about the opportunity she used to start an online business of her own.

How To Deal With Plagiarism

Plagiarism is rife on the internet and it is illegal.

I hope you never experience people copying content from your website and placing it on theirs, but if you do here are some pointers on how to deal with the problem based on my own experience.

This is a huge problem in that your site could be seen as the one with duplicate content and banished to the depths of the search engine results.

I have recently dealt with 3 cases, all of which have required different courses of action. 2 cases were serious in that they have either just copied my whole front page, or several pages and the 3rd had copied partial content from my Online Business Ideas home page.

The normal course of action is to politely write to the webmaster and ask him to take your content down.

If this has no effect then you need to contact their hosting company and you can find this by looking up their domain name on Whois. Often the webhost will reply to you requesting you to send your complaint letter in this format:

1. an electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright or other intellectual property interest;

2. a description of the copyrighted work or other intellectual property that you claim has been infringed;

3. a description of where the material that you claim is infringing is located on the site;

4. your address, telephone number, and email address;

5. a statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law;

6. a statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information in your Notice is accurate and that you are the copyright or intellectual property owner or authorized to act on the copyright or intellectual property owner's behalf.

The hosting company will then give the webmaster 2 or 3 days to remove the content and if this is not done the hosting company will suspend the site until the content is removed.

I have come across a webhost who would not deal with my request at all. In this case you then need to send a DMCA Takedown Notice to the webmaster. Here is a website that tells you how to send a DMCA Takedown Notice.

Again this may have no effect - in my case it didn't so I just continually email the guy and have threatened now to report him to Google - here are the Google Guidelines.

To detect copyright infringement you can put your site through Copyscape. This page gives you a great explanation of how to handle plagiarism - http://www.copyscape.com/plagiarism.php

Bear in mind that if you detect plagiarism through Copyscape those webpages will have already been indexed by the search engines.

Ideally, you need to try and nip it in the bud and catch it before the web page is indexed. You can do this if your whole page has been copied and you have StatCounter or Google Analytics on your webpages.

In StatCounter check the urls that appear in "recent came from" - you will even be able find urls that reveal they are working with your source code in their WYSIWYG editor and in their File Manager!! You can also find these urls in the WebePanel stats under "Total Referrers". It is quite a shock when you click on them and your own website pops open with a different web address!

When I saw this, I wrote to the hosting company straight after emailing the Webmaster and the hosting company took action immediately and created a robots.txt file on their account to exclude files containing my content in order to prevent Google from indexing it. Then they asked for an explanation from the webmaster and a few hours later the content was removed.

You can go one step further and ban that webmaster from viewing your site by placing code in your .htaccess file which will include his IP address. Bear in mind though that you could be excluding a range of IP addresses. The code you add looks like this:

order allow,deny
deny from XX.XX.XXX.XXX (the xxx being the IP address)
allow from all

This code will return a 403 - Unauthorised error in your "Hits By Response Code" in the Statistics section of your WebePanel.

Hope these pointers do help you should you ever experience your content being copied illegally.

Ideas To Increase the Profitability Of Your Online Business

One of the most frequently asked questions in forums is how to start and build a profitable business online. It is a very important question to ask as you not only need to know how to start a business online, but you need to know how to build it into a profitable one.

There is a big difference between building a website and sending immediate traffic to it and already having a business website that converts at a minimum of at least 1% of its visitors into loyal clientele. While it is alright to know the theory and practice of what you have learned, if you don’t have or know how to convert your visitors into clients – paying your website hosting fees might be a pain in the long run.

You need a split-testing tool to track every visitor that comes to your website. Without knowing how well your traffic is actually converting, it will be like being a student trying to cook a good looking and tasty lasagna for the first time without a recipe. You only get to assume the results when you get your lasagna cooked and it may not taste like you’ve initially wanted!

The same goes for building a profitable business online. You can have the greatest intent and ideas in mind, but if you don’t have a proven recipe you will increase your chance of failure. As brilliant author Randy Pausch in his Last Lecture book reminds us; “Experience is what we get, when we don’t succeed in what we want.”

However, you now know that tracking every visitor that arrives on your website is of maximum importance. You need to highly consider acquiring a split-testing tool for testing different versions of your index page and well as your inner web pages.

It doesn’t stop on your web pages. With good split-testing software you are able to track your hyperlinks on your index page. You are able to track the words inside your main header and how efficiently they are converting into daily percentages. Most importantly, you are able to at least predict with intelligence what should be your next testing move.

Remember, when you track your visitors you will know how well your business is growing. Once you track your results, you will either get experience that will ultimately lead you to a positive cash-flow or the reverse. A selection of the correct split-testing program will also save you more time and ultimately earn you more money.

If you are experiencing immediate cash-flow then there will be little need to change it as it’s producing you money as an online marketer or you won’t need to change it all. Now, make sure to keep learning and applying the techniques that work to build a profitable business online!

About the Author:

Cynthia Minnaar runs her own Profitable Online Business full-time from home and she invites you to visit her Internet Marketing Training Guide for more profitable marketing ideas.