The last two parts of this series took you through creating your
home business and setting up your professional internet marketing
tools. Now it*s time to figure out what to sell and how to sell
it online.

(In case you missed it, you can read Step 2 here...)
http://kenleonardjr.com/step2

Before you decide on a product to sell online, figure out which
kind of home business you want to create. Some people make a
living selling digital or print infoproducts on the internet,
much like the ones you*ve seen on TV informercials late at night.
Others deal in hard goods like you would purchase from your local
retail store. Some people promote business opportunities through
network marketing programs.

Promoting a home business opportunity usually involves selling or
consuming a product or service while you are actively recruiting
new reps to do the same thing. The big advantage to network
programs is that the marketing system is designed to be simple
and easy to duplicate for a newcomer to home business. The
downside of many network marketing programs lies in the product
or service that the opportunity is based on.

Some programs don*t seem to have a product at all. The reps are
just selling the opportunity itself. If you look hard enough, you
will find one of the few network programs that have a quality
product that you can profit from with direct sales. This type of
company is always your best choice when considering a home
business opportunity. A perfect example of such a company and
network program can be found here:
http://ffsi.eliteteamfreedom.com

Marketing infoproducts on the internet is another option to
consider for your home business. Many people want specific
information from the internet and are willing to pay for it.
Infoproduct entrepreneurs create their own in house products as
well as selling other companies* products as an affiliate
partner. In the age of multimedia and computers, this type of
product can be sold in many different forms, from downloadable
digital ebooks and reports, print books and manuals, to audio
courses on CD and video courses on DVD. Overhead costs for an
infoproduct business can be very low, which makes it so
appealing.

Another option for your home business would be to deal in hard
goods sold on the internet. Many people make a good living
selling physical products on internet auction sites like eBay.
Others sell products on websites at retail price that they have
purchased from a wholesaler or importer. You can have a small
warehouse or use a spare bedroom to store inventory that you ship
yourself, or you can use a drop shipper.

Drop shipping eliminates the need to keep a physical inventory.
The drop shipper will process and ship an order for you after a
sale is made. The packaging even looks like it came directly from
your company. A useful resource for finding drop shippers that
deal with many different kinds of products can be found here:
http://dropship.for-your-biz.com

Once you are sure of the marketing method your business will
operate with it*s time to find a product to sell that will be in
demand and profitable. If you already know what kind of products
or service you want to sell online, you first have to check the
demand and competition for related products.

Keyword and advertising research will show you what people are
looking for online (related to your product idea) and more
importantly, tell you if they are willing to pay enough to make
it profitable. Using a keyword research tool will give you a look
at what people are looking for online. If a person searches on
Google using the keyword phrase *pet gifts*, they have a desire
for pet gifts. Keyword research will show you how many people
searched on any keyword phrase over the last month. If people are
performing a lot of searches for your specific keyword phrase,
you may have a winner.

Advertising research for the same keyword phrase will show you if
those searchers are willing to pay for a product or information
on the subject. Monitoring the major pay per click search engines
is a good way to gauge activity for a specific keyword. If you
find many ads from Google AdWords or Overture targeted to that
keyword, chances are good that there is money to be made with
that keyword.

Doing this research manually will take a huge amount of time. If
you value your time highly (which you should), automate your
keyword research and ad research as much as you can. There is a
good free keyword research tool that will help you available
here: http://www.goodkeywords.com Doing ad research can be even
more time consuming. A good solution that automatically (and
quickly) researches any keyword phrase while it does ad research
for that keyword at the same time can be found here:
http://marketresearch.for-your-biz.com

As you can imagine, a tool like this will be a huge time saver,
especially when you have to research 20, 30 or even 50 keyword
phrases until you find a winner.

When you have found a profitable keyword phrase related to your
product idea, it*s time to set up your lead capture system and
sales page to test it out.

Step 5 of this series will cover all of that, while teaching you
the most effective way to sell your product. This sales system
will be totally automated, so once you set it up, you just feed
it targeted prospects and perform occasional fine tuning to your
sales page. Creating and fine tuning the sales page is coming up
next in Step 4.


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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Home Business Success Coaching
Ken Leonard Jr. publishes New Marketer Ezine
weekly. Get the advice and direction you need
so you can make a living working from home.
If you are serious, see what others are saying
about New Marketer here...
http://www.kenleonardjr.com