Making money online is very real and very possible – in fact likely, depending on how you think, how you work, and how you go about it. If you think like a business person, work like an entrepreneur, and go about making money online as a real business and not a get rich quick scheme, then you will most likely make money. And if you are like many webtrepreneurs that are behind the scenes and under the radar, you’ll make a great living and enjoy what you do.
There are so many ways to make money online. I’m going to discuss one model. That’s the authority niche site, where you create a great site that has helpful information that people are searching for on a regular basis. The site is ranked to come up in the search engines when people search for your site’s topic and you have ads placed on the site that make money when people see or click on them. These are relatively easy sites that require very little interaction with the end users of the site. It’s pretty easy to make money with this method.
I’m not saying that everyone can make money online. There are some skills that really help to ensure success. What are they and can they be learned or outsourced?
1. It’s best if you can write. Yes, this can be outsourced. And many people use crappy articles or spinners to change the articles so they appear original. But in the current environment – and in fairness to the end users that will be visiting your website, it’s best if you can write fairly good. You can write like you talk. In fact, there is evidence that this is the best way to write – just casually like you’d normally speak.
2. You should have at least a small amount of marketing skills or be willing to learn. Be able to pay attention to see which articles/posts you write get the most traffic, which ads you place get the most clicks, which areas on your site seem to make the most money when ads are placed there. Some of this is common sense, but I suppose to some people – they just can’t figure out the importance of the things I just mentioned.
3. You should have a basic understanding of what search engines want and be willing to work at search engine optimization (SEO) or find and hire someone that really knows what they are doing and is not going to rip you off. You can actually use me for this. I can’t recommend anyone else because it’s hard to find people that are good at this. Here’s why. If people are that good at SEO, then why would they want to work for you to get your site ranked? If they rank there own site, they make a lot of money online, so why do it for you for a fee?
But, they are out there. And like I said, I’ll consider you as an SEO client if I am not totally booked. Otherwise, learn how to do this. Stick to common sense tried and true stuff and don’t fall for the many scams that claim you can get to page one of Google by pushing a button. Yeah right!
4. You should have a business attitude and not give up too easily. You can make money fast. But this is a real business just like any other business (only better in my opinion). That means you should be willing to work, sacrifice, be ethical, be organized, learn, and yes… sometimes invest (or reinvest) in growing your business.
If you can handle these four items above, then I believe you can make money online.
So what now? How do I make money online
Well, give me a chance to get everything together. I make my living ENTIRELY online and I am proud of what I do and very happy. But I am busy. (Plus, I’m a single stay at home Dad raising 4 boys). So I’m pretty busy.
However, I’m very excited about starting a new project that includes becoming a mentor to those who want to learn how to make money online. I’m going to show a few hand selected people how to truly make a living online. I’m going to guide them on a very personal level. These few will be my beta testers. I’ll get them making money and document each and every step, the good, the bad, the ugly, and ultimately the success.
I’m not even putting up a link at the moment. But lets see how many people are motivated enough to figure out how to contact me. If you do, I’ll consider you as one of the beta test cases and we’ll talk one on one.
Yes, an internet business can actually be fun and very rewarding. Done properly, you will be helping people in some way while making a living.
Right here and now, I hope that I am helping you. My goal is to provide you with the information, resources, and inspiration to get started in your own internet business. So, look around, bookmark this site (or better still – use the rss feed) and enjoy yourself.
47 comments - What do you think? Posted by
james -
September 14, 2009 at 10:30 am
I’m often asked what is the best way to make money online? There are so many ways to make money online that it’s sometimes a difficult question to answer. But, if I had to choose just one way, then I would pick content niche sites that have some form of advertising on them. For all it’s many uses, the Internet is still the number one place people go to get information. And there’s a lot of money to be made in providing that information for those entrepreneurs that are committed to doing it right. I like to call us “webtrepreneurs“, thus – the name of this site.
A content niche site is simply a site that has information on a particular topic of interest; a niche. The site most likely provides articles, up to date news, pictures, videos, and some sort of interaction with the audience. But the main thing that makes the content niche site successful is that it makes it’s readers happy and wanting to come back again. Like your favorite news show or a magazine that you can’t wait to read.
So what niche is best? That’s a personal question. Many people are into this to make money fast, so they pick a niche that has high advertising value. These sites are based on topics that attract visitors that are wanting what high end advertisers have. An example would be a site on liposuction. The site provides valuable information on medical procedures like plastic surgery and breast augmentation and brings in lots of visitors that are interested in finding out more about this topic. Medical professionals, such as plastic surgeons are very eager to get clients, so they are more than willing to pay big money to advertise on the site. Everyone’s happy. The visitor gets information they want or need, the site owner (you) get paid good money from the advertisers, and the advertisers get exposure and leads that translate into paying clients.
Personally, I find it much easier in business to do something you love and are truly interested rather than something to make money fast. To me, each site is a business and I run it as such. That means everything from scheduled working hours to tracking expenses. But that’s just me. I am convinced that if you take making money online seriously and think and act like a business, you’ll make money faster than the average person.
So…homework for today? Yup. Figure out what interest you. Something that you believe other people may be interested in to. In my next post, I’ll go over how to determine if the topic you’ve pick has potential to be a money maker. And if it does, then we’ll get into weather or not you can compete with others who are in the same niche. Here’s quick hint: put your niche in quotes in the Google search bar and see how many results are returned. Also, take note if there are any sponsored ads. If there are, that means advertisers are willing to pay for you to place ads on a site about that topic.
On the above graphic, you can see how to check your niche. In this example, there is pretty heavy competition, but advertisers are certainly paying for sites related to this niche. Don’t worry about the competition yet. I’ll show you how to narrow this down later.
You’ve probably heard that the money is in the list. This can’t be said enough because it’s entirely true. If you build a list of prospects and customers, you have a way to tap into more traffic and sales anytime you want.
The traditional way was through e-mail marketing, where you’d build an e-mail list with an autoresponder that you would then send out e-mails to whenever you had a promotion, an update, a new sale, etc. going on. There’s nothing wrong with this. In fact, you’d be dumb not to build an e-mail list, but there are a few things you should be aware of first:
First, e-mail open rates are rarely high. A normal open rate might be 3% to 5%, while a great open rate is more like 10%. Anything higher than that is almost unheard of, especially as your list grows. This means that only a fraction of your e-mail list ever sees your offer.
Second, the deliverability of e-mails are rarely good even amongst the top e-mail autoresponders. Many of your prospects who might want to get your promotions never see them because it got blocked, filtered out, put into spam, etc. before they get a chance.
Lastly, if you’re sending a reminder about a webinar, limited time offer, a new sale, etc., it can take days for your e-mail subscribers to open, which might be too late.
Now, I’m still not saying to not build an e-mail list. You should! But on top of that, there’s a major push towards mobile marketing. More and more people are using cell phones (in fact, there are more cell phone users than internet users), and if you’re not building a list of mobile / cell phone subscribers, you’re losing out and will only lose out more in the future.
Here are some facts about mobile marketing:
- Text message open rates are extremely high. Over 95% of text messages are opened and read. That means that more people will see your marketing message.
- Deliverability of text messages is also extremely high. Almost every text message sent will end up on your subscribers’ cell phones. This means that everyone who wants to receive your texts and messages will get them.
- The vast majority of text messages are read within the first 15 minutes of being received. That means that you can get your prospects and customers’ instant attention, as well as a great way to send reminders about webinars, sales, or limited time offers.
In the past, mobile marketing was something exclusive for larger corporations and businesses with deep pockets. After all, the minimums to get started could be in the thousands of dollars, and extremely costly with charges for every text message and every subscriber you have. And even with that, you’d need a top development team to manage one mobile campaign for you.
Now, the old days of high costs and limited functionality are over. With Mobile Autoresponder, a new mobile marketing service, you can build and manage your own list both online and offline for one low monthly fee for unlimited subscribers and unlimited text messages.
You can build a list online by simply placing a special opt-in form on your website (or even on the thank you page of your e-mail opt-in form) to collect cell phone numbers to get subscribers to opt-in so you can then send text messages to them anytime you want. This is an awesome feature you’ll rarely find anywhere else except on expensive corporate campaigns (but not any more!). You can also collect mobile subscribers offline through the use of short codes (having subscribers text a short code to a short number to subscribe to your lists).
This combines the best of online and offline mobile lead generation through MobileAutoresponder.com.
Check them out today to get started. You’ll be shocked at how little it will cost you to get started with your mobile list.
Here’s how to use the new QR codes that enable you to have print ads with a QR code (basically a bar code) leading your clients to your ad, landing page, or website simply by scanning their smart phone.
This is really hot technology and is causing a revolution in the entire marketing industry. Check it out. Really.
Text marketing or mobile marketing is HUGE right now and is looking promising to continue in growth and provide a powerful tool in innovative businesses marketing strategy.
Why Mobile Marketing?
More than 90% of text messages are opened (normally in the first few minutes of being received) compared to a fraction of that percentage for typical email marketing (which is still necessary). This gives your business or product more exposure and provides a quicker response time from your clients or prospects.
If you can imagine having the power of an intelligent autoresponder, but being able to use it to text people… it’s a marketing dream. But, now it’s more than a dream. It’s a reality. And I suggest you take it seriously and get in at the start.
In order to make a living online with blogging. The first thing to do would be to pick a niche. A topic that you can get into. Perhaps a subject or a hobby that you’re interested in. Don’t worry about how you will make a living off the topic for now, just pick something that you are interested in and can imagine yourself talking and writing about on a very regular basis.
A good example is this:
My 12 year old son, Josh (he’s 15 now), is really into biology. He loves bugs, snakes, frogs, and generally anything that crawls. He asked me to teach him how to make a website. I suggested a blog and helped him to start a simple blog on rhino beetles. It was no coincidence that he had found a rhino beetle early that day and had taken a few pictures of it.
So, we started with something that’s simple, free, and very powerful (Google loves it). We made a Squidoo page about Rhino Beetles. Actually, I gave him a few instructions and researched the subject and made a pretty good lens (Squidoo talk for a page).
Now, if you search “rhino beetles” in Google, his lens comes up 3rd in Google (out of millions) and is visited quite frequently by people from around the world.
Of course later, we developed an actual blog and tied the Squidoo page to it, and even ignoring it for the most part (not recommended), it’s doing quite well. He makes money on a consistent basis.
The point is. Pick a topic that you like. I disagree with the gurus that insist that you “backward engineer” a subject that can make money, then create a blog around it. Trust me, you’ll loose interest and it will quickly become a burden to you. Your readers will probably realize your hearts not into it.
The best way to make a living online is blog consistently and passionately about the things you love. The topic should be focused and fairly narrow, but should be something you really love.
If the blog is interesting, informative, and keeps the readers attention, they will tend to come back. Additionally, the search engines will notice that your writing is consistent, unique, and has value to the Internet community.
As you gain readership and popularity with the search engines, you will begin to realize the potential that blogging has for making a living online.
Blogging for money is an amazing experience. It encompasses all other aspects of making money on line, but is one of my favorites for many reasons.
you build an actual relationship by providing valuable information on a consistent basis
the better you are as a blogger, the more readers you gain
eventually, your readers and you form a symbiotic relationship that benefits all
there are such a variety of ways to monetize a blog
the whole idea is “real”. It honestly provides a great environment for the whole Internet community
I’ve been highly involved in a variety of successful blogs. These blogs are in a variety of niches (topics). They are a joy for the people who post to them and they are happily followed by very loyal readers.
I’m in the process of writing a book about successful blogging and I will keep you informed. In the mean time, I will be posting over the next few weeks some of the things to consider when you choose the blogging model for making money online and truly becoming a webtrepreneur.
5 comments - What do you think? Posted by
james -
April 14, 2011 at 8:16 pm
“Here’s How A friend of Mine Added an Extra $2600/mth to His Income In Less Than 10 Minutes…”
…without increasing his traffic a single bit…
This may sound completely ridiculous, but all it took to accomplish this was to change one line of text and delete a paragraph on one of his sites.
That’s seriously all he did.
But it wasn’t an accident…
No – what he did was make a few changes that he knew would effect his sales (see why below), and then he just sat back and watched the newfound profits roll in.
You see, over the last few years he’s developed a very simple, systematic way to make any of his sites more profitable by simply tweaking certain things, and then letting his traffic tell him what’s working and what’s not.
This works for ANY site. Affiliate sites, sites that sell a product – any site.
Even low-traffic sites – (He has a special process for optimizing those as well…)
It’s completely foolproof – and this “tactic” is also, without a doubt, the fastest possible way to realistically multiply your current income in as little as a few weeks -without generating any more traffic than you already have…
By now I hope you have set up your own WordPress Blog and are beginning the process of monetizing it.
Very quickly, I wanted to tell you about the most unique approach I’ve *ever* seen to go from zero to full time living from affiliate marketing.
In fact – the strategy I’m about to reveal to you is so incredibly powerful by its own design – and the simplicity of how it works – that the only way you wouldn’t see substantial commissions from doing this is if you simply DIDN”T do it.
With this strategy, I’m able to produce one site after the next that generates remarkably high revenues with very little overall traffic. Very targeted and very effective. In some cases the sites generate what would be considered a full time income with less than 100 visitors a day.
Take a minute to look at this – you’ll thank me later! The Lazy Marketer
2 comments - What do you think? Posted by
james -
October 14, 2009 at 11:40 pm
Making money online is very real and very possible – in fact likely, depending on how you think, how you work, and how you go about it. If you think like a business person, work like an entrepreneur, and go about making money online as a real business and not a get rich quick scheme, then you will most likely make money. And if you are like many webtrepreneurs that are behind the scenes and under the radar, you’ll make a great living and enjoy what you do.
I’m often asked what is the best way to make money online? There are so many ways to make money online that it’s sometimes a difficult question to answer. But, if I had to choose just one way, then I would pick content niche sites that have some form of advertising on them. For all it’s many uses, the Internet is still the number one place people go to get information. And there’s a lot of money to be made in providing that information for those entrepreneurs that are committed to doing it right. I like to call us “webtrepreneurs“, thus – the name of this site.
