I have been generating leads on the internet for my primary business for over 5 years, during that time I have generated over 15, 000 leads for my business. My primary business is network marketing. Lead generation for me has made the difference between having a home-based business and having to leave my home to do business. Lead generation for me has meant that I never have to fear being out of business when my warm market runs out. It means that I don't have to depend on my warm market to fulfill my goals and dreams. It also means freedom from having to buy leads.

I have learned what works and what doesn't, what will cost me money and what will make me money.

Internet marketing has changed radically since the day I threw up my first Pay-Per-Click(PPC) ad on Google with little or no training. Cannot do that today and have the same results I did...no sir.

The reason is simple: Search engines reward content and penalize fluff. This is what I mean: Most teams and companies offer replicated pages, a page that really isn't yours but your company or your upline allows you to use a mirror image of their page to allow you to tell people about your team, product or service.

The mirror image that they frequently sell to you doesn't really exist. The search engines cannot check your page out to see if it has content, a process called "crawling", and, if you set up a Pay-Per-Click campaign, you will be in a strict bidding war with your next nearest competitor and pay the highest cost per lead.

The cardinal principle that you must obey before setting up a web page is to determine your "most wanted response" from that page. Lead generation should be your most wanted response. Give your prospect only 2 options when they land on your page:

1) they opt in

2) they leave

Most team and corporate pages violate this cardinal principle when they create their pages. There is no prospect response desired, they simply want to give information. A prospect lands on the page, opting in is only one of several options that they have. In most cases they can receive information about you, your team, your company without ever opting in to receive the information. If you use a page like this on a PPC search engine, you will be charged the moment they clicked your link, they will get the information and you won't get the lead.

Having your own landing or opt in page is a simple technique that will avoid this problem. This technique is truly simple, can be completed in an hour and will cost less than 40 dollars to implement. I set up my own opt in page when Google changed its tactics over 2 years ago to reward content at the expense of replicated pages. I saw my lead volume shrink and my ad costs double. Having my own page has solved that problem. My first opt in page was created using Netscape's free program, Composer, is less than one screen in length, has 10 lines of text and has a form where people can opt in. Yes, I invested both money and time, but I more than made up for that by saving money on lead generation costs. An additional strategy you can use to increase your opt in rate is offer a free report. There are free copies of Think and Grow Rich, The Science of Getting Rich, The Master Key System and wealth reports by such well known authors as Robert Allen all available for download and free distribution on the web. A quick Google search: free e-book downloads offers a virtual treasure trove of information you can give away.

These simple techniques will help you ensure your independence from your warm market and keep your business home-based.