Today the world is governed by ideas. People who have idea and act on it are successful. The success is no more limited to people with money infrastructure and power as it used to be few decades back.

Everything has been overshadowed by ideas.

All you need is an idea and will to act upon that. If you do that, everything that is required will follow it.

So nothing is more precious than ideas.

As an internet entrepreneur you are always looking for new ideas. One of the drawback of internet is that it reduces the shelf life of content.

You write an article, it gets popular and then it is soon superseded by a new one.

You need to produce content regularly, write and publish regularly. You need to mail your list, you need to participate in forums and so on…

And everywhere you need ideas to stay ahead.

Therefore ideas are precious. You need to always have good and fresh ideas.

Ideas come suddenly, often when you are least prepared for them. They do not care where you are or what you are doing.

They come when you are jogging, when having lunch or are in mid of some other task.

And if they are not grabbed, they just vanish away.

Later you might try your best to catch them, your memory just fails you.

Therefore, always be prepared to receive them.

There is no big science involved here. All you need is some medium to store and save the idea.

It can be

Paper

Always keep a notepad or diary with you where you can scribble immeditely the moment idea comes. It i important to note every detail that flashes. I like this method and use i most. It is highly convenient and almost instant.

Once you have written your thoughts, they are there to stay. All you need to do is to have a look again.

Computer

When working on computer, I always keep my Notepad open, jus in case an idea knocks. There ar emany softwares available that do it in more sophisticated manner but for me notepad is sufficient.

I can copy later it on a MS Word file which I can use to create the list.

Cell Phone or PDA

When you do not have access to anything else like paper when you are out, cellphone is another thing that you can use. You can write or record your voice.

Similaly PDA can be used for scribbling. The disadvantage with these is that they are little slower as compaed to paper and pen but they ahve an advantage that they have higher chance of being with you.

Digital Recorder

Not comfortable typing or writing? Use digitalvoice recorder instead. You can later file them or transcribe them.

There are many other ways that you all might be using to store your ideas. Do share them.

What do you do when idea comes?

Unlike primary search, the secondary search relies on information that is preexisting or previously collected data. It is the type of search we are used to conduct fo rour online business. Whether you study some search engine, ebook or book for your market search, you are doing a secondary search.

And unlike primary search, the secondary serch is cheaper. You do not have to build from scratch. Secondary search is ideal for small businesses.

The information for the secondary search can come from a lot of sources. Here are few examples

• Online pages
• CD/DVD
• Books
• Ebooks
• Press Cuttings
• Consumer group reports
• Government reports
• Market Search Companies reports
• Local Sources

Why Secondary Search?

Even big companies resort to to secondary search in addition to primary search. It is so because it is easier to conduct, quicker and is very cost effective.

Her eare few things that you can do with secondary search.

• Estimate the size of the market and rate of its growth
• Number of competitors
• Sales volume and profit margins
• Existing price data to formulate your own price strategy

Secondary search is of enough value to determine profitablity of the market.

The main disadvanttage with secondary search is that data becomes outdated quickly. It is not your alone. Your competitors may also derive the benefits of available data.

But as an internet marketer especially in low budget situations seconadry search is of immense value to find whether one should jump into a particular niche or not.

Study of the market takes full priority when thinking of starting a business. Only research would tell us whether the particular niche is effective and profitable or not.

There are many methods to coduct a research, from Google to Amazon and so on.

Today we would discuss, primary search.

Primary search means the search that gathers original data, not previously available, by interacting with your target market. Primary search provides true feedback and statstics about the market.

In contrast, the secondary market research is basing your information from a data that has already been compiled.

How is Primary Search Done?

Direct One To One Interaction

In this method you meet people directly in their homes or outside and ask the intended questions.

Phone

Phone is a great media for connecting with people. But the disadvantages is that people are more prone to lie on the phone and detailed questionnaire cannot be asked.

Online Surverys

I am sure you must have come across one. There are various methods of online surveys. It is a cost effective method as compared to offline methods but still expensive.

Mail Questionnaires

Good old mail comes quite handy for this purpose.

Focus /Consumer Groups Survey

This method is used to get feedback. Small groups of people are gathered  to give feedback about a product or concept.

Why Primary Search?

Benefits

• Provides raw data in relation to your intended product or market.
• It is unique and tailored to your marketing plan. It is your data only and can be kept confidential. That would provide you the edge over the others.
• It is the latest thing.Because market dynamics keep changing, you can rely upon the latest information.

Disdavantages

• Expensive
• Data collection process is long and tedious; not suitable for businesses who want to move early.

If sample size is not well chosen, the information may not be relevant.

Primary search is meant for bigger companies.  It has been discussed for understanding and to better grasp secondary search that we would discuss shortly.

Internet research is one of the few activity that we do often. From small routine searches to big projects, internet research is a great savior and helper.

Business search is something unique. There is lot that you can do for your business by getting help from the search. We all do search at one level or another but we are still far from harnessing the full potential of research. It is one activity that can grow you business by leaps and bounds.

How you use the research is up to you. For purpose of present discussion I would restrict myself to the benefit of business search.

1. Whether Market Exists For Your Idea

Market search is the first step to any business venture. It is important to find whether there is a market for your intended product or not. This saves a lot of headaches. There are plenty of places where we can perform the search and get idea of profitability.

2. Explore Present Market

Are you thinking of expanding and growing your business. Before you do, you must realize whether your present market is big enough for an adequate expansion. If you decide to expand would this market fit your expectations. Search would provide the right answer.

3. What Does Your market Want

The search or survey utility can easily let you get responses from your market so that you have an idea how your product is serving the market. Is this actually meeting their needs or people are still wishing for some more features. You can use that data to roll out a ne version, new product or simply improve the present one.

4. How To Access Your Targets

When you know your target markets, it become easier to research and study them further. To make maximum profits you need to reach to the people who would actually buy. Each market is segmented and few groups would spend more on your product than others.

For example if you are selling baby products, new parents are more likely to buy from you. You can study there behavior and surfing pattern. For example it is good to know about the places they visit often so that right marketing can be done.

Access is very important.

5. Find  New Potential Markets
In addition to market to your present/future product there would be possible additional related or unrelated markets that you might want want to consider. That could be an idea to bring a complimentary service or product or roll out a altogether different venture.

6. Partners for Joint Ventures

A simple search would let you know the people who are selling complimentary products. These are the people who are your potential partners. When you have their web addresses at your disposal, everything becomes easier.

7. Find Competitors

A good businessperson always knows what is his competition. It is also important to conduct a regular searches for knowing the movements of your competition.

How do you use research as business tool. Please do write your suggestions and views

Without introduction I would move to the reasons

Its Pure Profit

Ebook lets you keep 100% of the profit margins. Except for the transaction fee charged by payment processor, you need not pay anybody anything. Not to the publisheer or bookstore or any other middleman. all the money that comes is yours.

Zero Cost

If you write it yourself, you can create an ebook without spending a penny. All you need is

• A program like MS Word to write your matter. you probably own one already. If not open office is a great free choice.
• A program that converts your file to pdf. Here is a list of free pdf creators.
• All you need to spend is on website and hosting. That is quite cheap now a days.

Zero Inventory

All you need is to upload your file once and watch it being downloaded again and again over the time.

Easy To Update

Unlike the actual book, ebooks are very easy to update too. You need to modify the file and upload that again.

Instant Delivery

No packaging hassels, no shipping delays. Customers get instant gratification from one click dwnload. Unmatched bbuying experience.

Higher Perceived Value

Ebooks are perceived to be of higher value than regular books. That is why you are able to charge $29 or $37 or $67 and so on.

People pay because they value them more.

So when are you writing your next?

Market search is the first step for establshing a business. Everything begins with a market search. This is necessary step to find a hot responding market for your product. Market search is quite a complex subject and many people find it difficult to grasp.

Look! Whatever you do online, you would need audience in order to sell. So whether you are writing a blog on affiliate marketing or creating an ebook on home decoration, you would need to find whether there exists a target audience.

Creating a thing first and learning later that there is not enough market  for it is devastating and foolish. If a few steps could save one from heartbreaks, I feel it is wise to take those steps.

There are many approaches to market search. I would be discussing one approach here which I find quite useful for creating info products.

Find A Hot Idea

To look for a hot idea, you would need to look at what most people are doing, discussing or talking about. News channels, both local and global are a great source of hot ideas. Find what people are discussing, what are the  frequent topics that are in conversation. Take notes while you do this.  Try to find news as they come.

Look For A Product Within Topic

After you have stumbled upon an idea, it is the time to expand it into a product.  Here is how you can do it

• Search for  the forum on topic you have just chosen. Now a days forums exist almost on every topic. Let us say that you have chosen a topic like “White Cats”. We would now go to Google and look for forum on the “White Cats”.
• Visit the forum and look for what people are talking. See what is the most frequent conversation. Let us say ” How To Bathe White Cats” is a discussion that erupts every now and then.

A hot and frequent discussion in the forum means there are people who are facing the problem and are looking for the solution.

Till now you have found a topic of “White Cats” and know that there is good market for this product and people are quite enthusiastic to learn how to bathe white cats.

Go Google Again

This time, it is different reason. We want to create product and we are looking for information. You want to know what is available on the topic of your interest. Search for your intended product how to bathe white cats. See what emerges.

Note down what people say about the problem and what solutions are being offered. When you go through various informations available, you would notice that there is pattren of information among all the answers. Note that down. Now note are there any ebooks being sold. If there are it is good idea to but and read it.

First it would provide you a lot of information collected at one place. Second it would provide you with an opportunity to judge how you could improve upon the present material.

Write

Now you have enough information  on the topic, writing is the next ovbious step.

After all this discussion about info product creation we arrive at a commonly asked question.

What if I do not want to create a product or do not want to get it created? Are there any options available? Can I still do online business?

Yes! The answer is affiliate products.

Affiliate products allow you to do online business without rolling out your own products. In fact there is an army of affiliates over the internet doing business day and night.

And affiliates do make handsome money.

Let us understand the concept of affiliate products in detail.

When a company or person launches its product, it aims at getting maximum number of customers. To achieve this product must reach the maximum number of people. In offline business this is done through agents, franchises and partnerships.

In online business this can be easily achieved by affiliate programs. When you join an affiliate product you get your affiliate ID which can be inserted in the hyperlink of the product.

When a customer clicks on the hyperlink (with your ID included inside) the customer is taken to the sales page of the product. If a sale is made then you get your commission from that sale. Seller is happy and you are happy.

It is a win-win arrangement.

You do not have to create a product, the company did not do efforts for selling but both are benefited.

Affiliate products are a great way to make money. But a keep this in mind before you join an affiliate program-

An affiliate program should be free to join. Do not join a program that will charge you a fee to become affiliate. Sometimes you buy a product and get affiliate status as bonus. That is acceptable.

There are some programs which charge you a monthly fee for becoming a member and you are expected to recruit more for getting a commission. These are not affiliate programs but MLM programs. Such programs eat up a lot of your money before you realize. In such programs you sell a membership and your recruit is expected to sell the same in return. This kind of sale is hard and associated with high attrition.
You should get a good commission. Check the percentage offered. Good programs offer 30-60% commissions.

Choose an affiliate program that you would like to sell. If you are not convinced about usability of the product, you will not able to sell it convincingly.

Select your product carefully. High priced products seem quite lucrative due to higher commission but the market for those may not be that large.

One very important factor that is often ignored is your aptitude for the particular product. Select a product that you can associate your interests with. For example if you like fishing then a product that caters the fishing needs will be easier to sell than a selling a real estate product.

Again I must emphasize to study the market and demand for that product. Though the company would have done that already but there is n harm in little exercise.

Plan your market strategies beforehand.

It is better if you make your own website instead of promoting the copy of the original page laced with your link. Having your own website gives you a unique identification and professional look. The other advantage is that you can promote multiple products on the same page rather than promoting different pages separately.

Try and give your full efforts into promoting what you have got. Affiliate programs are good way to learn the market tactics. Learn and try them best to your abilities.

Stick with the product you have chosen instead of jumping to the new offer of some other product. New products are being released everyday but being new does not mean that it is better and easier to sell.

Here are few affiliate product centers that offer you a number of products to sell

Internet Marketing Center
Clickbank.com
Commission Junction

With this we end our discussion on product creation. From now onwards we would discuss setting up of your own website.

Till then.

[tag-tec]Resell rights products[/tag-tec] offer an instant and ready made solution to product creation. Somebody has done all the research and taken out a product. Moreover, the product is available with resell rights and you can sell the products within constraints of the available rights.

There are many a places you can buy resell rights from. Resell rights products worth considering for your business are of three types.

Resell Rights
Master Resell Rights
Private Label rights

We have discussed in detail in previous posts about differences in various types of products. Here We would stress upon how to acquire resell rights products worth selling.

Before you buy a product you must choose a niche as you would when you create your own product. There are a lot of products available with different kinds of resell rights almost in every niche. It is important that you choose a niche that you would like to do business in before you jump upon buying a product.

You should choose the niche upon same principles and guidelines as we have discussed before for your own product. After you have chosen your niche, the next step is to acquire the products with resell rights.

There is a unique angle associated with resell rights products. Because they are available with rights that enable others to sell them, the same products are sold by many people. That means your product is same as many others. That is not a big problem with though but you would have to be selective and careful.

Next question is to decide where to buy resell rights products. Because everybody is selling the products and there are many kinds of products on the same topic, you should only buy from reliable sources.

Resell rights products are many a times packaged and rebundled to offer you more value. You can do a search and find what is the best bargain available for the product you are interested.

However, there is better value for money option available. That option is joining a [tag-tec]membership site[/tag-tec] that offers download of resell rights products against a membership price.

In my view, joining membership sites is a very good option if you are looking for a business in resell rights products. Not only you get the product you want but also many other products that you can sell alone, repackage or offer as bonus. You get more products which if used would result more customers being pulled to your site with better offers.

Because of competition, membership sites have become quite affordable to anyone and everyone. Gone are the days of $49 per month membership. At homeforprofits.com, our site which offers downloadable ebooks, softwares, audios and videos, we have kept membershiip prices very low and affordable. You can know more about it here.

Whatever mode you choose for acquiring resell rights products, it should be done after careful selection and research.

An ebook is the easiest method to create an info product. Ebook can be created in PDF and HTML form. The most common file format for an e-book is Adobe Acrobat PDF but few writers prefer other format.
Creating PDF Ebooks:
You would write and design your ebook first in MS Word. If you have many illustrations, you can use Pagemaker or Quark. We would be discussing MS Word as it is the most commonly used word processing program. You would also require a software that would convert Word files into PDF format. Ideal choice is adobe Acrobat Professional but that is quite costly. There are free options available fortunately.
At http://www.pdf995.com you can create PDF files for free.
Creating An HTML Ebook:
For HTML ebooks an ebook pages are created like pages of a web site. For HTML ebooks you would have to make sure that you select a good software package that allows you to include hyperlinks, graphics, search, and forms. Two of good softwares that I would recommend are Ebook Pro and Ebook Compiler. HTML ebooks are fancier than pdf ebooks and you can add many effects which may be liked by the reader.
HTML ebooks do not work in Mac computers.
Whatever format you use for ebook creation, you would need to keep these tips into mind.
Page size: E-book pages are typically between 5×7 and 6×9 inch. You can set the page size in Word’s “Page Setup” menu.
Margins: You should set margins to a minimum of 0.75 inch on all sides. It is also customary to place a header and footer at each page. Title of the book and the page number are most commonly used headers.
Font: You should use standard fonts such as Times, Times New Roman, Century/New Century Schoolbook, or Palatino. You should use a minimum of 11 points for text, and 12 to 14 points for subheadings.

Graphics: For graphics use .gif or .jpg files. Use images of appropriate size and of good resolution. Check your image resolution by enlarging your Word document to 150%. Your image should look good and undistorted at this magnification.
Front Matter: These are the pages that come before your first chapter. These would include
* A title page
* A copyright page
* Acknowledgments, if you want
* Table of contents

Back matter: This comes after the last chapter. You can put an index, your own bio, contact information and advertisements for any other books that you are selling.
You should be able to create a good and presentable ebook with these tips.

If you understand how to perform sophisticated searches of online information, you will greatly increase your chances of finding what you want. If you know the right commands and usage, you will not only find the information but also save plenty of time.

Here are a few good tips that you can use to enhance your search

Using Phrase Searching

Enclosing the words in quotation marks makes the search engine return only webpages containing the exact phrase. Here is an example: If you search information using “make money” as your search query, the search engine will not show you the webpages which do contain make and money but are not in that order. This will also eliminate pages containing make and money in entirely different paragraphs, a major problem when you search without quotes.

Using Truncation

If you are looking for information on designing, you could use it as your keyword. However, if your results are limited in number and you want to broaden your search, you can use a root part of the word and abbreviate it with an asterisk (design*). The engine will return links to pages containing design, designs, designer, designers, and so on.

Using Capital Sensitivity

If a search keyword is capitalized, the search engine will return only documents containing the capitalized word.

Using Boolean Logic

These are perhaps the most useful feature in defining search criteria. Boolean operators provide us with powerful control. AND, OR, NOT, NEAR and parentheses are various Boolean operators that we can use to define our search better.

Note:All Boolean operators are to be written in capital letters otherwise search engine would treat them as keywords

AND

AND is used when you want a webpage that should contain all of your keywords. The search engine will display only those pages that have both keywords. For example: Using the search keywords internet AND business would return all pages that have both the words.

OR

OR is used if you want to broaden your search to find webpages that contain either of the keywords. This is very useful tool when searching for terms that have synonyms. An example is money OR wealth, which would return any webpage that had either of the keywords.

NEAR

This operator is similar to but more specific form of the AND operator. Not only it ensures that the document contains both terms but also that they are located near each other. I find this a better operator as AND can return in pages which have two keywords far away and not relevant enough.

NOT or AND NOT

If you use capitalized AND NOT preceding a search term, it would eliminate webpages that contain that term. If you want to find information on info products and do not want documents that include information relating to audio-books could use “info products” AND NOT audio-books.

Note:The usage depends on the engine. Both NOT and AND NOT have same role

Parentheses

AND, NEAR, OR and AND NOT, when used in conjunction with parentheses offer substantial control over the search logic used by the engine. We would understand use of parentheses by an example.

If you want to find a business tutorial you may use the search term as business AND (tutorial OR lesson). This would tell the search engine that webpages returned must contain both of the words business and tutorial or business and lesson. The parentheses distribute the keyword business to either of the two “OR” words inside the symbols.

Similarly if you were looking for information on cyberlaw you might want to use “cyberlaw” OR (legislation AND internet), which would return documents with the words cyberlaw or documents containing the word internet and the word legislation.

You can even nest one set of parentheses inside another to further refine the search. Since the word law/laws is a synonym of legislation we can truncate law and do this.

“cyberlaw” OR (interent AND (law* OR legislation))

This would tell engine to search for cyberlaw or pages containing internet and law(s) or internet and legislation.

Note: Some engines use + or - sign instead of AND and NOT. For example for searching home business you can use home+business [ No space between word and +]. and search will bring the pages containing both terms.

Using Specific Searches

If search engine offers you can limit searches to specific areas, the most common being the document title and URL.

Title search: If you are looking for information on search engine optimization and think that there are entire web pages devoted to your subject having the keywords in the titles, you can use:

title: search engine optimization.

Similarly you can do a URL search. If you are looking for all pages from Microsoft, you could use: url: Microsoft, which would return web pages created by Microsoft and others having Microsoft in URl.

Using Restricted Searches

Some engines allow you to limit your searches to “country” or “newsgroups” or blogs. Some search engines also allow you to search specific media such as audio, video, images etc.

I hope these tips will help you to make searching a better experience.