A joint venture is when two or more businesses join together to work on a project for a set period of time. Doing online joint ventures can increase your chances of beating your competition, increasing your sales and profits, saving time and money, getting valuable referrals, and increasing your market share.

The following are ten online joint venture ideas:
1. A simple joint venture would be exchanging text links or banners with other related web sites.
2. Share a web site with another business with the same target market. You both will be marketing and advertising the same web site which means double the traffic.
3. Exchange testimonials or endorsements for each others products or services.
4. Combine your products or services together with other businesses into one big package. You could split the profits.
5. Do you have and product or service that doesn’t sell well? Offer it as a free bonus for another businesses product or service. In exchange ask for a small portion of the profits.
6. Offer to insert a promotional ad for another business into your product package. Just ask them in return to do the same for your business.
7. Trade e-zine or auto-responder ads with similar businesses.
8. Team up with related businesses to create an promotional e-book to give away. Publish your web site ads in the e-book then just give it away for free.
9. Host a virtual trade show or seminar with another business. Include each other’s promotional material on the web site.
10. Create a freeware program with another business. Include a promotional ad for each of your businesses in the program. Submit it to freeware and freebie sites.

1. Give your prospects extra incentives so they will order quicker. It could be free shipping, a faster shipping option, free gift wrapping, etc.

2. Make your small business look big on the worldwide web. Design your web site using professional graphics, ordering systems, organized layouts, etc.

3. Attract a lot more customers by giving them clear ordering instructions. Give them all the information they need so they can complete their order easily.

4. Give your customers buying incentives so they’ll make repeat purchases. Offer those discounts, free gifts, bonus points, etc.

5. Tell people about your site whenever you get a chance. Those people will tell other people and so on. It’s a cheap way to multiply your advertising.

6. Write and send press releases for your web site. Use strong headlines, make it newsworthy, and tell the journalist why their readers would like it.

7. Use a lot of headlines on your web site and ezine. Some types of headlines are free offers, questions, problem solvers, sales, and statistics.

8. Design graphics, templates, and buttons and banner ads for other sites. Allow people to use them in exchange for your web link on their home page.

9. Use time saving promotional software. You can automate your search engine submissions, posting to online classified sites, etc.

10. Advertise your online business by dressing in clothes that are imprinted with your ads. It could be a T-shirt, ball cap, coat, etc.

The way you structure your payment offers can increase your sales. I’m not talking about the way people pay like credit cards, digital payments, checks, and cash options. What I’m taking about is can your customers try before they buy, pay later, make payments, do they get a rebate, etc. Below are six payment offers that will sell like your products or services like crazy:

1. Sample It

Offer your customers a free sample or short version of your product or service. Your sample should give them only a few benefits of the full version. This will entice them to purchase the full version to get the total benefits.

2. Name Your Price

Offer customers a choice of want they can pay for your product or service. List your original product and price then add another product with it for a little higher price. Your orders will increase buy letting the customers choose their price.

3. Free To Try

Offer your customers a free trial of your product or service. You could offer the free trial for 5 to 30 days. This is showing them that you have confidence in your product or service and it will sell itself.

4. Give A Little Back

Offer your customers a cash back rebate after they buy your product or service. I feel a good rebate would be a least 10% of their purchase price or higher. This will increase your sales and, like most of us, they will forget to turn in the rebate.

5. Pay Later

Offer your customers the choice of being billed later for their purchase. Bill them in a few weeks or a month. This will stop you from losing customers who can’t afford to purchase your product or service at that time.

6. Little At A Time

Offer your customers the option of paying you a little at a timefor your product or service. You could divide up the purchase price into bi-weekly or monthly payments. You won’t lose customers that may not be able to pay the full amount at that time.

1. Ask people to find a hidden link in your ad copy. If they find the hidden link tell them they will get a prize or freebie by clicking on it. This will increase the chance that they will buy your product or service because they will read your whole ad copy.
2. Start a member’s only web site. Tell visitors what’s in your member’s only site and what it costs to get access. Offer them a free membership, if, in exchange they link to your web site, post your banner on their home page or agree to advertise your web site in their e-zine for a set period of time. Usually they will agree to the free advertising to save money. This is a powerful way to get free advertising.
3. Want a popular discussion board? This technique is based on the number of postings made by any one person. You could give away a free product or service to any person that posts ten or more messages on your discussion in a month. It could be a free e-book, report, e-mail consulting etc. Just keep track of everyone’s postings each month. This could also work for e-mail discussion lists.
4. Give your visitors an instant article directory. Tell your visitors they can instantly add a free article directory to their web site by linking to yours. Just place your ad or banner ad on top of the article directory for your main product or service. All those links can add up to a large amount of traffic for your web site.
5. There a millions of web sites on the internet. Instead of marketing your web site as it is, market it as a free web book. Design your web site with a title page, table of contents, chapters, etc. Just place your ad or banner for your product or service on the top of each web page.