In the last ten years of learning to attract the good people of the INTERNET for my astrology biz, a true cottage industry, a definite "at home" business, -- I have learned that running an uncluttered, artistic website is what it's about, no matter what your business. No ads at all. Pristine, clean machine. Less is more. And you can design your own, it's easy. I use NETSCAPE for a browser and it has a built in web page designer called "NET COMPOSER". You pluck the Graphics from what's out there online. Download NetScape Version 4.7 an oldie but a goodie. Netscape composer makes it REAL easy to add graphics which MICROSOFT WORD does NOT!
Once your website is designed and up and you have that WEB PRESENCE in cyberspace, the second thing you need is TRAFFIC, in the old days done by registering your site with search engines. Today we realize, who uses any of them --except google? And search engines find you automatically by sending web robots after META TEXT. The important thing is to have information on your webpages (in the hidden, META TEXT AREA) that people GOOGLE AFTER....You gotta have the answer to their questions. So that when they search for "HOW TO MEDITATE" they find you as you put META TEXT in the top area of that article on meditation with that very phrase in it. "How to meditate, easy meditation technique, Yogi Bhajan's Meditation method.." and on and on, until you've covered all phrases they're likely to GOOGLE...then you will get the HITS.
Aside from META TEXT, next you attract clients by using TWITTER, FACEBOOK and putting intriguing ads over on Craigs List and really using little squibs of seductive text so folks CLICK ON LIVE LINKS you put into the ad. I advertise all my guerilla capitalistic articles there, instead of saying come to my free seminar, I give them the idea that a GROUP could be started right there in their city, a free webinar or online seminar that trains people for new age guerilla capitalistic jobs. You put it under CREATIVE GIGS also.) In the writings themselves there are many OTHER live links to many archives of teachings/ classrooms/ writings. People go down a veritable maze, a hallway with many doors...entering from the Craig's list ad!
NEXT, make a personal list. Anyone who ever writes you on your theme say "Joe, If you run a cottage industry, you will want to be on this list I do, you get one post a week by email. And your browser stores not only individual names, but LIST names. Phone me up I'll tell you how to build a list. I'm astrology at earthlink dot net. And write me, I'll give you my phone number, lead you thru 'mastering your browser."
You probably say, I only have ten friends in my city who even have PC's ..How could I befriend dozens of net surfers daily, new people make new friends, besides those silly social networks" The Answer is GROUPS! Visit: http://www.luckinlove.com/yahoogroups.htm
I wrote up all the ways I could think of to HUSTLE those
services or that MERCHANDISE which U offer:
http://www.masterjules.net/hustlemerchandise.htm
I find that a TWEET with a LIVE LINK works, ditto LIVE LINKS ON FACEBOOK. I heard a radio story about FISH TACO WAGONS where the owners tweet the location their ROACH COACH will be found in by lunch time that very day. Then there's your Craigs list ad is written peppily and persuasively so folks click on its URLS and they get to your articles. And yes, you gotta write articles. Because it is an INFORMATION AGE and people are looking for info! Even ad placers want info. I wrote up DRIP EMITTER tech for gardens, I was offered money to take an ad. Not interested, though as I don't like clutter.
So beautiful articles, some graphics. It's not at all hard to write a little article. Spell Check makes it easy. I'll tell you what else makes it lickitysplit quick. SAVE a copy of YOUR EMAILS (BCC it to yourself,) any email to pals, where you discuss your fabulous info. That potato soup recipe. That 'wild yoga posture, or set.' That decor trick. Save it as text and rewrite it into HTML and post it with your FTP software. (free online,)
In your article, you are writing down what you know is important. You sit on unique information. And out on the INTERNET we have an information highway and you wanna be on it with some info of some kind. Potato soup or Meditation or HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN FREEBIE WEBSITE -- Web Tech for Dummies.
My scribblings are always on real useful stuff: like webtech for dummies or holism, how to rejuvenate, how to heal certain, specific maladies, how to heal pets without vets, how to catch a billionaire mate, how to find the cottage industry that's right for you and run it, gardening, a million things, cooking, recipes. Dumpster diving and frugal living. How to avoid the taxman. Guerilla Capitalism.
I offer a dozen different 'collections' of useful seminars, HOW TO BUILD A FARM, The MONEY GUERILLA CAPITALISM WEB PAGE, THECOTTAGE INDUSTRY PAGE. THE MARRY WELL PAGE. Everytime I write an email to anybody and go into depth on the subject, their love life, their arthritis, whatever, I save a copy and turn that into an article. That Text becomes HTM text, ie it becomes formatted, colorized FTP'd website pages
TO GET the cattle who hang out at the VAST PRARIE of CRAIGS LIST to come trotting to the different OASES (plural of oasis,) that I run, the very first rule is BE GOOGLE WORTHY. Have META TEXT on top of all articles you post.
USE THE many OASES found on the INTERNET. Joining YAHOO groups takes thirty seconds, then you can post right away to the Yahoo list that interest yous, your passions: progressive politics, fishing, cooking, real estate. Folks are reading you at that list, spotting the URLS, clicking and bookmarking your website to come back. If they also write you, put them on your email list. I do lists on the ten subjects I cover. SEMINAR LIST:
Third, put out a lot of different Craigs List ads as oddly enough, they end up in GOOGLE. Recently I googled for HOT NEW AGE GURU and suddenly was face to face with MYSELF! Some ad I'd put on CRAIGS years ago and about a thousand more, all were still in GOOGLE's immense MAW!
I do regular CRAIGS LIST ADS for "HOW TO MARRY A BILLIONAIRE", (for gals only), "HOW TO START a COTTAGE INDUSTRY and BECOME a billionaire, 'a GROUP' !". Sometimes they are placed at GROUPS section or at FINANCIAL SERVICES section, (Rich men go there seeking bookkeepers in their city... I announce a free seminar, "how to become a merchant prince" Now, that targeted Craiger is already a rich man but he's interested in the subject.) Or for poor men I post at the JOBS section so jobless people can find my helpful writing, "Career you can go into without licenses or training," and in the craigs ad itself, URLS go into detail on internet biz, import export and mercantilism. Even 'how to be a PSYCHOLOGIST but only admit to doing 'TANTRUM YOGA"
150 articles on LOVE/ marriage are at theLUCK IN LOVE (how to marry VERRY well website) TO GET visitors to hoof their way over to that one, I gotta PICK real BEAUTIES, right? Well, Craigs has no BEAUTIES section so the ads are placed at ACTORS/ TALENT section. Headline reads, "ARE YOU GORGEOUS? GET THE BEST JOB in SHOW BIZ! HIGH SALARY, WORLD TRAVEL!"
CLICK! The beauty clicks, and reads, her jaw drops, her brain cells cogitate, she writes me, I make a friend.
BUT.....It used to take me ten pals a day help me do craigs list ads as Craigs ROBOT only let you do one a day per section. NOT ENUF! So two pals put up an ad a day for me. Now I find I can do ads on ten subjects and with ten different TEXTS and the SPAM ROBOT doesn't catch me. My biz is not local, I do stars for every city of the world, so I'm not confined to one city.
WIth a little skill creating headlines and articles, you can MAKE FRIENDS
on the INTERNET. I consider my articles valid as teaching, training tools
but they are also a kind of TRADE BEADS. My free seminars are my
INDIAN
WAMPUM. MY TRADE BEADS.
I give them out like MARDI GRAS NECKLACES, to the crowds. 
For me the trick is, the actual AD BANNERS have to be good enuf that folks CLICK on that ad and read them. IF I SAY "JOIN A GROUP AND STUDY CAPITALISM," it's too dry. If I say "LEARN TO BE A BILLIONAIRE" it's so juicy it doesn't get any respect. So I have to be very careful to say 'MERCHANDISING Expert teaches a pro bono online seminar on how to be a multi-millionaire in MERCANTILISM, import/export. Read the whole thing in five minutes flat.'
This lures readers thru a maze of continual LIVE LINKS to great writings, great tips, great URLS. Each article has portals to other URLS which lead to still OTHER articles. BUT headlines or ad banners are the PORTAL!. They'd better be exciting or folks won't click on them.
A Craigslist ad banner might say "LEARN HOW TO DO IMPORT/EXPORT and make a million. "LEARN HOW TO DO EXPORT OF AMERICAN ARTISANRY" And they go there, but there they will find the URL FOR ARTISTS, DESIGNERS. So going thru the first live link, like a portal will lead them thru a maze of articles. ONE LEADS to another! TEN, TWENTY articles away, they have no idea how to get back to the craigs list ad and find me (GO BACK BUTTON at bottom of each page will take them back though.( Also each article has my name and email..
Sometimes a pal asks "how do Craigs list ads offering free seminars in the JOB AREA of Craigs, help you, Anita?" Well the answer is, we all respond to aunt and uncle figures. I teach, advise, they study. My 'voice' is in my teachings, so they start to feel they know me. I'm free so they trust me. I don't have ads, don't try to sell anything. They might notice that in fact the only thing I do for money is astrology and for only 25$ an hour. No matter what article they come to, they are going to notice that I know stuff, guide people, I'm passionate about all of it and I share for free. The info is way off to the outrageous EDGE of what people find in GOod House Keeping or MC CALLS, so they need it. It's not even in NEW AGE magazines. Who else wrote the sure path to talk to ALIENS? I DID! I wrote "How to do Primal Scream, combine it with ROLFING and earn 100$ an hour." Massage Tech mags turned it down like crazy.
Now it might be argued, what does my writing articles on the tricks of dumpster diving and frugal or cheap living have to do with attracting clients for making 25$ horoscopes? WHO IS GONNA TRUST A LADY WHO DUMPSTER DIVES? PROBABLY some people will flee. So fine. I'll do astrology for the ones who see a potential in this info during the yawning GREAT DEPRESSION. Cuz hey, maybe their MOM AND DAD also lived thru the great depression as my folks did. Half the family in Hitler's Germany, My grandpa had to wheel a barrow of cash to buy a loaf of bread. Other side of family, Grandma in Oakland Calif area had to rent rooms to BOARDERS and cook for them. She'd have liked to know which dumpster had hundreds of loaves of FAIRLY fresh baked bread in them. Me, I know so I go to that bakery at the very hour they're about to dump and tell them, 'Got the stale bread? I do deliveries to poor people.' Once I was leaving a loaf on a bus bench at midnight a sleeping old lady there. As I was placing it in her blankets a Guy in a Mercedes stopped at the light, saw me, waved. I made the sign for money. He gave me a fiver thru the window. I put it in her blanket with the loaf. She woke to some nice surprises right there on the corner of Beverly and Pico. Memories are made of that.
And hey, although a loaf is good, man lives by more than bread alone. Man feeds himself with ideas. We are nutrified with the inspirations that researchers can give us, how to not pay taxes, or pay lower, how to run a charity and salary yourself, how to write a screenplay. So much info out there. Write it RIGHT and you make stuff folks thought was hard... EASY! You who learn easily need to find readers. Folks who need skills, information. That is life's blood, food on the table. Well, CRAIGS and TWITTER and YAHOO GROUPS & FACEBOOK GET ME READ!
I want to share knowledge so the economy gets going. I want to forward the action down here. For instance. My skull is busting out with stuff on planting biennials in September and I do the GARDEN INDEX. Many articles there on how to make a living FOODSCAPING. How to have a farm l gas tank from the city, 12 families share it. I also have a seed office, tables of seeds! I make GIFT PACKAGES OF SEEDS of all kinds of RARE fruits, vegetables, available free to astrology clients and those who sell me used books. Seeds are my real trade beads. I order books from about fifty different used-book vendors across USA who are all online. (Read "How to Order books for a buck each, Anita Sands' secret tips,) every time I get a dozen books from a vendor who has let me go around the SHOPPING CART, (hard to use, automatic high shipping costs.) I send them a fat envelope with six little packages of my own garden seeds. They are trading beads in a way.
I have recipes on cooking tofu so it tastes good (black mushrooms and brown sauce are how,) all at my FOOD INDEX PAGE, anothr webpage with FRUGAL LIFESTYLE TIPS, how to live on a dollar a day, which I've had to do for forty years. Dumpster diving. Raising four kids as a single mother. So I share all those archives. When a book vendor tells me his wife has cancer, I've got the HOW TO CURE CANCER INDEX PAGE. So the articles can become trade beads. Only I give them away.
For the younger set, an archive of 150 articles called "how to find a good mate and marry not just date. " Another website on how to make a great cottage industry in handicrafts, trading, art, mercantilism that would make them very rich. I share this stuff. Now would I get read if I didn't Facebook, Twitter, Craigslist, Yahoo groups & put those ads up? NO. Niente Nada. Zip.
So make your own website, advertise it on Craigs, use META TEXT so GOOGLE can find you with its robot spider, and if you want, register your URLS at search engines but that last is the least..
When did you ever in your life use a search engine that wasn't google? GOOGLE IS THE ONLY ONE YOU WANNA BE ON! AND YOU GOTTA PAY them heaps a' cash a month! So I don't go there. No, I do better than that, Craigs gets me lotta hits. Twenty thousand a month per page! each article, twenty thousand people read it, according to my websites' counters.
NOW here is the WEENIE. OUT OF TEN PEOPLE who read articles on how to
live life, how to be spiritual how to make a living, how to get into show
biz safely, how to live frugal and dumpster dive, ONE will eventually note
that all my addies are ASTROLOGY, astrologer.. starlady, calstarlady, myself
I have fifty addies by the way....all starlady stuff....and they
will come to me as an astrology client. OR, in your case if
you were to get a website & do writing and do craigs list ... a what?
B&B GUEST? A client? A BUYER? A healing patient? I only make 25$ an
hour and I'm motivated to do this webwriting thing. YOU PROBABLY make much
more and so you should really do this thing. CREATE A WEBSITE with
articles and then CRAIGS ADS to lead folks to them! AFTER ALL, There are
all levels of trade beads. Some are pretty posh. 
Another thing, after the happy recipient of the fun articles has enjoyed and learned from them, this very act of being very first person intimate, a voice, an oddball ole lady type.....and being READ gets me into friendship and then dialogue with new readers. Daily a person writes me having read a file that was related to their interests or needs. I get into dialogue on the dozen or so THEMES OF THE SEMINARS.. On marriage, raising babies, frugal living, recipes, health, healing, preventing disease, on creating living room groups. Or on astrology, learning to read the future. Their love problems. Invariably they bring up their personal life and hey, may I remind you, I CHARGE for that! and they feel by that time that I'm their fave fun to read author/writer/ idea sparker or guru/ friend....they pay my fee of 25$ an hr. for a natal horoscope or comparison of charts.
You want to meet people and do business so do as I DO! BE A FULL ON INFO-CITY PERSON, a self styled expert on something. A GURU! Let's try to do you up a fine website. WRITE SOMETHING, based on what you know. Send me the article, I can always find cute cartoons to go with it if you don't have your own graphics. If you have photos, we need a jpg or gif file) . I'll make you a simple, uncomplicated website. Minimum of bells and whistles. Read the "HOW TO DO YOUR OWN WEBSITE" page.
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