Need advice on starting my own online business

Hi

I too am new, and just don't know where to start in this forum!

As for your business, a blog is useful when are you to write articles weekly or monthly and a website when you have mostly static information and can add a blog to your website ! I would go an e-commerce website to showcase your photography, and write a blog updated weekly. Just be aware that you have to have good security so that people don't just right click and save your pictures access. Do like i-stock photo, etc, plce text over a not very good quality size of your photographs. Or you do take photos of weddings, etc, then website is fine.

Hey, thanks for your advice. I appreciate it.

Hi Enterpriser,

Going for a blog or a website really depends on what features you want to add to your site. I don't use blog style sites because they lower my conversion and their features are limited.

Regarding adwords and affiliate marketing, do you mean you want to create your own affiliate programme rather than post adword ads to get traffic?

My advice to you is have your own affiliate programme. You can test running some Google adword ads too to get some initial traffic but just watch how much money you spend. Running PPC ads can be extremely expensive.

If you decide you want an affiliate programme I'm currently testing two different affiliate management software solutions. The first one is JROX and the other is iDev. Both are very good and I believe the owner of JROX is a fellow warrior.

When you create your affiliate programme you need to start promoting it to affiliate directories. Search the affiliate directories for similar products and contact them for cross promotion. Watch the PPC ads and see who is promoting your competition and then contact them too. Contact other site owners in the same market as you and see if you can attract them to become your affiliate even if they are currently not promoting any other products. Use software such as CB engine or internet success spider to find super affiliates. CB engine will spot products that have a high percentage of affiliates selling their product. Then use internet success spider to find out which affiliates are selling their product.

When you contact the site owners who are already promoting photography affiliate programs, get them to promote yours by making sure your offer is worthwhile, your site converts and you pay your affiliates a generous commission. Use a reputable affiliate management system too. The two I mentioned above are fine. Contact the site owners on the phone if you can too.

Provide your affiliates with promotional material and promotional ideas. Call your best affiliates to build a better relationship. Share your best "what's working now ideas with them", offer them higher commissions for more traffic.

Make sure you have a page on your site about your affiliate programme and try to make sure your affiliate programme page has ( primarykeywordaffiliateprogramme.html ) in the url

Hope that helps

Rich

You might want to stay focus on one model at a time. There are so much information that are available in this forum that you might find it confusing.

Just choose one model that you like to follow and stick to it.

Just my 2 cents

Zack

Hi Guys,

I really appreciate your advice given. I do find it helpful and I'll seriously look into it.

By the way, can anyone teach me how to thank other warriors on the left column? I've been trying to search for the function in this forum.

Thanks much again! =]