Bill McRea

As a blogger or online business owner you have the luxury of working on your business anywhere you can get Internet access. You may run your blog from your kitchen table, or from a lounge chair inBali, but your basic business practices and the choices you make as far as equipment and services are having an impact on the environment around you.

The green revolution is reminding all of us that the choices we make about how we live and work will have a lasting impact on the quality of our world. This article will give you a few tips on how you can create a more sustainable online business that contributes to a greener, cleaner world.

 1. Commit to doing business with eco-friendly suppliers.

This means taking the time to find out about the business practices of the vendors and suppliers that you work with. Choose ones with a demonstrated commitment to sustainable business practices that will help support the environment.

 2. Recycle

This might sound like an obvious, no-brainer, but are you doing it? Are you recycling your waste products? Do you use recycled toner for your printers? Do you consider repairing broken furniture before replacing it with new? What about purchasing used furniture and refurbished business equipment? Recycling helps shrink your carbon footprint and keeps things that might otherwise go into a landfill out and in use.

 3. Monitor your energy consumption

Plug equipment and appliances into power strips that can be switched off at night or when they are not being used.

 4. Consider ‘green’ certified products

These two websites, greenseal.org, and goodguide.com help consumers find green, healthy and sustainable products. They rate products and review how they affect human health, environmental health and their social impact.

 5. Eco-friendly shipping

Do you pack and ship products? Do your research to find more eco-friendly packaging and shipping suppliers.

If you are committed to helping to save the environment, commit to the goal of generating zero waste in your business and the least waste possible in your home environment.

Many bloggers work from home, so your home has become your workplace. Be more mindful of how the actions you take and the choices you make have a lasting impact on your immediate environment and on the planet as a whole. If you learn something from changing certain practices, or trying new products you might even consider blogging about it and sharing what you’ve learned about sustainable business practices with your followers.

Having a ‘green,’ home business can be fun and educational. You might even consider installing a windmill, or a solar panel to generate your own electricity. Start with small steps and keep going until you have reached the goal of zero waste.

If you want more of the other kind of green to be flowing in your business, visit http://mcreasite.com/blog to discover how you can grow your online business with powerful and effective Internet marketing strategies.

With the rising popularity of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, there has been a lot of talk about how email marketing is dying out, and that it’s not as effective as it used to be. Margaret Framakis, of Return Path UK, said, “The death of email has been vastly overstated.”  She went on to say that while email might not be as flashy, new and sexy as the social media sites are, it is still the most effective way to build a solid relationship with your customers.

Email marketing is definitely not going away. Email marketing generates revenue, and it is great for branding and keeping your company and brand top-of-mind in your consumers heads.

One of the main barriers that keep email from being as effective as it once was is the increase in the amount of spam that is flooding your customers’ inboxes. It’s been estimated that as much as 55% of email messages get deleted before they are even open because people think its spam, or because of the fear of viruses that can be delivered via email.

Gone are the days when people were eager to get new email. Now what’s more challenging is to rise above the noise and stand out in your customers’ inboxes. Your emails must demand attention, be relevant, and the subscriber must recognize the name in the ‘from’ field or they will more than likely delete it.

The best way to make sure that your email marketing campaigns are as effective as possible is that you must first get a clear understanding of what your customers and prospective customers want from you. Ask for feedback, conduct surveys, be open and transparent as you build a mutually beneficial and respectful relationship with your subscribers. Rather than thinking of your email subscribers as a ‘cash cow,’ think of them as your tribe. Think about how you can be a trusted resource for them so that they look to you as someone who provides value rather than someone who always has a hand in their pockets.

1. Always send a welcome email

Send a welcome email as soon as someone signs up to your email list. Walk them through how to white list your email address and set the expectation for how often you’ll be emailing them, and what kind of emails they should be expecting from you.

2. Run your email messages through a spam filter

Before you hit that ‘send’ button, use a spam filter to flag certain words that can raise the potential spam level of your email.

3. Put your full name in the ‘From’ line

4. Don’t use ALL CAPS in the subject line and limit it as much as possible in the body of the email.

This can set off spam filters.

5. Re-direct the live links in the message to your own domain

If it’s done properly, email marketing can be a very effective way to brand your business, build solid relationships with your audience and generate revenue. Take the time to test and track your email campaigns and you should see encouraging results.

Email marketing is just one aspect of Internet marketing. If you’d like to learn more about building and growing your online business, visit, http://mcreasite.com/blog today.

As an online business owner, your website is your livelihood, so you should always take the necessary steps to protect this valuable asset from the dangers of being hacked. In this article we’ll take a look at some of the ways to you can prevent your website form being hacked, and some of the plugins that you can install if you are running a WordPress blog to prevent your blog from being hacked.

Before I delve into sharing these tips, you will notice that they seem very simple, and it’s true they are. Protected your site from hackers is not rocket science, but you have to actually take these simple steps or you will leave your site vulnerable to the malicious attacks of hackers who are out there watching and waiting for vulnerabilities that they can exploit. It only takes a moment to destroy years of your hard work and jeopardize your reputation in your marketplace when you become a victim of a malicious hacker.

Use a strong password and change it at least every 3 months. When you get lazy about setting a strong enough password, or changing it frequently is when you leave yourself open and vulnerable. Your password should be at least 9 characters, and made up of a combination of numbers, letters (both upper and lower case, and keyboard symbols.

Keep your anti-virus software up-to-date

You can transfer a Trojan virus from your PC to your website if your computer gets infected with a virus, so be vigilant about keeping your virus definitions updated regularly.

Keep your website software or scripts up to date with the latest version available

If you are running WordPress on your blog, you will be alerted when there is a new version available every time you log in to your dashboard. When a new version of the software is released it contains fixes for bugs and vulnerabilities that were found ot exist in the previous versions. If you are still running the old version hackers can exploit those gaps.

Backup your data regularly

While this won’t protect you from getting hacked, in the event that you do get hacked you can be sure to always have a fresh backup ready to replace the compromised one.

Choose a reputable & reliable web host

Make sure that your webhost has responsive customer service that you can reach by phone when you need them. Also make sure that they have the most robust security available on their servers. If your site goes down because it got hacked you want to be able to get it restored quickly, but when it comes down to it, your webhost is not to blame if your site gets hacked.

Although there is no 100% guaranteed way to prevent being hacked, following these simple, basic procedures will make it more challenging for hackers to target your site. It’s up to you to keep your data safe, so make sure that every member of your team also follows these security procedures.

Website security is a crucial issue when it comes to your online business. For more tips and strategies about building and growing an online business visit, http://mcreasite.com/blog today.

Entrepreneurship in the online world is simply about transferring those skills of taking an idea to market, seeing an existing need and filling it and creating new ways of doing things to the digital marketplace. Rather than dealing with a brick and mortar location and attracting foot traffic for their new ventures, online entrepreneurs focus on generating web traffic by satisfying the needs of their online visitors for elegant solutions to their challenges.

What is an entrepreneur?

The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics defines entrepreneurship this way:  “An entrepreneur is someone who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise. An entrepreneur is an agent of change. Entrepreneurship is the process of discovering new ways of combining resources. When the market value generated by this new combination of resources is greater than the market value these resources can generate elsewhere individually or in some other combination, the entrepreneur makes a profit.”

Source: econlib.org/library/Enc/Entrepreneurship.html

To describe entrepreneurs as, agents of change and people who assume risks is just scratching the surface. The word entrepreneur conjures up images of trailblazers like Richard Branson, who see a need, create a business to fulfill that need and get compensated handsomely for it.

How is entrepreneurship different in the online world?

In the online world, entrepreneurs often focus either on creating software and information products, which can be purchased online and delivered instantly without intervention at the customer’s convenience, or on creating an entire online business that can then be sold. The true entrepreneur always has some kind of business venture brewing. Their passion is creating a thriving enterprise from a nugget of an idea, or even taking a struggling business, reviving it and selling it at a profit.

The Internet provides the perfect venue for entrepreneurs because there is so much opportunity to start a business from a single idea and get it going without a large amount of financial investment unlike starting a brick and mortar business, which has a whole host of expenses including the physical location and inventory.

The word “entrepreneur” taken from an archaic French verb, entreprendre, which means, “to do something” or “to undertake,” so by the nature of the origins of the word, entrepreneurs are those who use their talents and ingenuity to do something to change the world, and they always find a way to get handsomely rewarded for their efforts. Out of the big successes that entrepreneurs bring about, the world is changed. For example, Apple, now one of the wealthiest companies in the world, was started by two men in a garage. The massive Wal-mart chain began from a single store in Arkansas, and Ford Motor Company, started by Henry Ford, brought a product to market that has without exaggeration, changed the entire world.

In the online world, youtube.com is a prime example of entrepreneurship in action. It was about seeing a need, filling it and getting rewarded handsomely for it. Youtube.com was developed, as the story goes, by three college friends because of the challenges they faced sharing a digital video among themselves. Now, who can imagine an Internet without Youtube?

Whether online or in real life, entrepreneurship is about taking action on your ideas, and finding a way to create a profit.

If you are looking for more information about entrepreneurship online, or how to start your own business venture, visit, http://mcreasite.com/blog, where you will discover lots of actionable information about Internet marketing today.

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If you are tired of the corporate grind and you are ready to break out on Your own and start a business, there are several options available to you. In this article we are going to weigh the options of starting your own Internet business vs. buying a franchise.

Option one: Buying a Franchise

The lifestyle of an entrepreneur seems pretty attractive from the outside, and often when people are looking to be able to run their own business, be their own boss, and work the schedule they choose, they consider buying a franchise. A franchise is appealing because it’s a proven business model, they have a well-known brand and pre-existing customer base. There is no re-inventing the  wheel when it comes to running a franchise. You simply follow the proven business model hopefully to success.

But there are a few downsides to this option. Franchises require a sizeable upfront investment. They also require a considerable investment of your time while it is in the beginning stages of getting established. You must hire and manage employees, comply with both the rules and regulations of the company and the location where your business is.

With any new business you are taking on some amount of risk, but with a franchise you have invested so much money upfront and so much of your time and energy that if the business were to fail, you would still end up in considerable debt until you pay off all of the franchise fees, and the expenses of closing down a retail location.

On the flip side, there is always the possibility of the franchise becoming a huge success, which might mean opening more locations and taking up more of your time and sacrificing your quality of life.

Option two: Building an Internet business

Part of the wide appeal of starting an Internet business is that you can begin with very little money. You do not need to lease office space, hire employees or worry about expensive overhead costs. You can work from the comfort and convenience of your own home, set your own hours (however you will actually have to work) and work at your own pace. You set the rules and you determine your rate of growth.  Without the considerable upfront investment costs, it does not take long to break even and move into profit with an Internet business.

The downsides, however, are considerable. You are responsible for the success or failure of your business.  Because of the low cost of entry, many people do not take their business as seriously as they should, they don’t plan carefully, and they don’t manage their time efficiently.

But when you find success in an Internet business that you have started on your own, there are few things more satisfying. You can build a business that will provide you with residual income that will allow you to work fewer hours without sacrificing your income.

When weighing the two options, it really depends on your personality, what kind of lifestyle you desire for yourself, and how much upfront money you have to invest in a business venture and how hands-on you want to be in shaping the business.

If starting an Internet business sounds appealing to you, feel free to visit, http://mcreasite.com/blog, where you can discover lots of ways that you can build and grow a business online.

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