Bob's Home Business Blog

Home based business owners online, especially newbie’s, are always looking for suggestions and tips on how to improve their business and or their website. What better way to collect this information then by adding a survey to your home page.

Surveys are being employed by webmasters more often than ever on the web for various reasons and here are five excellent motives for adding a questionnaire to your website:

1. You can ask your visitors directly what they would like to see on your home business home page. As you may already know content drives traffic, and by granting your potential customer’s requests for different types of information and by updating your site with this new content on a regular basis you will be attracting the major search engines attention which will help improve your search rankings online.

Also by satisfying your guest’s needs you will improve your return visit statistics and as we all know the more often someone visits your web page the more likely they are to become paying clients.

2. People may even request that you add specific products to your merchandise line which will help increase your sales as you add what they need. By meeting your potential customer’s needs you’re creating relationships with these people. Relationship building helps attract not only new customers but also loyal, long term clients who purchase from you time and time again. This is a great way to help guarantee the longevity of your online enterprise.

3. People may offer suggestions on how to improve your customer service. You could add a question to your survey asking directly how they enjoyed their customer service experience. By improving this area and by providing excellent service you’re creating the opportunity for referrals from your current happy patrons who may be telling their family and friends about your home business. Once again, this is a great way to lay the foundation of your customer base to help ensure the long term success of your enterprise.

4. Your visitors may provide suggestions on how to improve your website design and layout to help them enjoy their visit’s more by making your home page more user friendly. When you make these improvements you will find you will be maintaining and adding to your current potential customer list because your current visitors will be coming back for more and your new visitors will be staying and eventually will become paying clients.

5. Your potential customers may suggest how you can improve your current products and or services. This should help increase your sales to these current visitors and also help generate more new traffic to your website which should also help boost sales and profits.

So as you can see adding a survey or questionnaire to your home business website offers the potential to help you improve almost every aspect of your current business model. This includes helping improve your website design and function, your products and services, your customer service and pricing and eventually your sales and profits. 

Bob Withers

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If you’re looking for a way to make money from home online then you should look into providing your opinion on various topics and products on the web for cash or more simply put look into paid online surveys. Companies dedicate a large portion of their marketing budget every year toward understanding what consumers think and what their attitudes are about certain products and topics and they’re willing to pay for this information.

The three most popular paid surveys on the Internet today, in random order, are:

1. First of  all, focus groups which are, according to business dictionary online: “Small number of people (usually between 4 and 15,)  but typically brought together with a moderator to focus on a specific product or topic. Focus groups aim at a discussion instead of on individual responses to formal questions, and produce qualitative data (preferences and beliefs) that may or may not be representative of the general population.”

Typically these forums pay the most for your opinion and participation and you can earn anywhere from $20.00-$200.00 for your involvement. The two main reasons corporations are willing to pay so well for your input is they’re always looking for an advantage over the competition and by getting into mindset of the general public they find out what’s important to them and what they really want in their product or service. Also these discussions are usually more time consuming then your typical question and answer survey so the company pays accordingly.

Focus groups are usually run by a moderator who initiates discussion of a particular topic and data is gathered from the active give and take between members. Information is garnered not only on what the participants think but why they think that way. This atmosphere allows the company to collect a lot of information in a short time and these discussions can be heated at times and participation can be interesting and a lot of fun. 

2. Paid online surveys are a more typical information gathering experience, comparable to their offline cousin, whereby the consumer answers specific questions and offers their opinion on a particular product or topic and are then reimbursed for their answers. Usually you fill out a form on the Internet and hit the submit button when completed. These surveys will pay anywhere from $5.00 to $75.00 for your participation and can take from 5 minutes to 30 minutes to complete.

3. Mystery shopping is probably the most interesting and most enjoyable survey in which you can participate. With this technique people are paid to go shopping at a mall, eat at a restaurant, go to the movies and even stay at a hotel or motel and offer their opinions afterwards by way of filling out a questionnaire. For the mystery shopping experience you can be reimbursed anywhere from $15.00 t0 $50.00 for each venture and at times you may be allowed to keep the merchandise you purchase.

There are many survey directory websites online you can research but be sure the companies you sign up with are legitimate and pay in a timely manner. Paid surveys can be a lucrative, interesting and enjoyable home business opportunity and is well worth investigating.  

Bob Withers

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