Making Money Online Guide: 17.6.07

e shtunë, 23 qershor 2007

How to Get Traffic, Part 4: Web 2.0

This is the last post about traffic (for now!) and it's about using Web 2.0 to get surges of traffic.

But Web 2.0 is really a buzzword describing new user interactions on the web, and encompasses many aspects, from blogging to wikipedia. What it's really about is using things like social networking and social bookmarking. How does it work? Basically, you use a site like Digg, Slashdot, MySpace, or Reddit and link back to your site. You will get immediate exposure and if you do it right, you'll get floods of traffic.

How do you do it right? There is no easy way to go about it, and if you blatantly advertise your site, your link will be removed at the least. You must offer valuable content. Perhaps write an opinion piece. A sure-fire way to get all these people interested is if you write about a recent, controversial topic. As of this writing, Paris Hilton is serving time in jail. This is a highly publicized topic, and if you could develop a product or write something that would catch the eyes of these surfers, you will generate server-crashing loads of traffic. Speaking of Paris Hilton, there was in fact a fake news site stating that she committed suicide. I saw it posted on several sites I frequent, so I imagine it was getting a lot of exposure online. If that site was monetized in any way with ads, they definitely saw a nice little increase in revenue during that time.

That's just one example of how to capitalize on Web 2.0 traffic. The potential is huge, and Web 2.0 marketing in general is really a broad topic on its own.

How to Get Traffic, Part 3: PPC Advertising

Just a small blurb for this topic. There is a third major way of getting traffic. It can be very targeted, but expensive depending on the keywords. Notice the ads when you do a search on Google, Yahoo, or MSN Live? If you click one, the people who put them up have to pay some price, ranging from a few cents to tens or even over a hundred dollars.

This is a great way to get to the top of the search engine results without actually being listed as a search engine result. You can set your bids for certain keywords, and even set up negative keywords. So if you're selling keychains, you can set up "free" as a negative keyword, meaning if someone types in "free keychains" your site will NOT appear. Succeeding in PPC advertising depends how well you can write a very short ad, how well you can select good, cheap keywords, and how well you can turn that visitor into a customer when they arrive at your site!

e premte, 22 qershor 2007

How to Get Traffic, Part 2: Search Engines

Kjo përmbledhje nuk ofrohet. Kliko këtu për të shikuar postimin.

e enjte, 21 qershor 2007

e mërkurë, 20 qershor 2007

Affiliate Marketing 101

I talked about how I got my start in affiliate marketing. What is affiliate marketing?

Essentially, you are pushing, pitching, selling someone else's product. But you don't deal with the customers. You don't deal with shipping and handling. You don't deal with any of that. All you do is refer the customers to them, and if they buy the product or whatever they sell on their website, you get a cut of the sale! Some important skills you should hone to blast the competition away as an affiliate include copywriting and persuasion. This gets much more important if you are shamelessly plugging someone's product. Fortunately there are ways to not be so "in your face" and gently lead a potential customer to their website.

What kind of affiliate programs are there? How do you sign up? It's easy. There is affiliate program for almost any product or service out there that is advertised on the internet. Here are four big sites where you can promote a whole smörgåsbord of products. All affiliate programs are free to sign up for, since you are essentially being "hired" to sell their products.

Amazon.com's Associate Program
If you sign up for this program, you will have access to promoting every single product on Amazon! Because these are all physical products, your cut will be lower (generally below 20%, often below 10% per sale), so I would focus on selling more expensive items, especially if you are using paid advertising.

Commission Junction
This is probably the best place to go to promote physical items and services. Many large companies host their affiliate program here. From airline tickets to insurance companies, CJ.com has it all. It's trusted and will definitely be around for a long time.

ClickBank
This is the mother of all affiliate program sites. There are literally thousands of affiliate programs here, and it's incredibly easy to sign up for them. These products are all or mostly digital products, meaning there is no "real" manufacturing, shipping, and handling costs. This means you get a much bigger piece of the action. Most products give you a 50% share or higher on every sale. If you develop your own product, you can set up your own affiliate program and get people to refer potential customers to you.

Paydotcom
This is a new, up and coming affiliate program site. It's a lot like ClickBank, but hosts a number of different affiliate programs. Highly recommended.

There are literally thousands of affiliate programs out there. Visit most sites and you will find one (look for "affiliate" or "webmasters" somewhere on the site).

2 Mistakes People Make When Starting to Make Money Online

People starting out in this sort of business make two fatal mistakes... or rather, one fatal assumption and one mistake.

The fatal assumption is that making money online is easy. No! It's not easy. Making money online is easy to get into. Anybody with a computer and internet access can tap into the vast wealth of the internet. If you're dirt poor you can still use various free methods to start earning money online. It'll be harder, but it's not impossible. Remember, making money online involves selling or pitching something to the largest market in the world. It's easy to enter that market, but it's hard making a dent. Especially when you start out. And this is where people give up, sadly. Stick through it and keep learning the ropes and you will see money. It took me over 4 months before I saw my first check, and I've been receiving checks and bank deposits ever since.

Now, the mistake people make is jumping into so many things, starting so many projects at once. There are literally dozens of ways to make money on the internet, and you could split those into dozens more strategies and techniques. People become overwhelmed. I was doing affiliate marketing and a little bit of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising for those 4 months. If I had jumped into MySpace or Facebook marketing, adult webmastering (which includes blogs, TGPs, galleries, linkdumps, freesites, etc.), or anything else, I'd be doing too many things at once, I would have never seen a check, and I would've given up.

But don't put all your eggs in one basket. If you're making money with a blog, set up more than one once you start making money with the first. Maybe dabble into affiliate marketing. Vesting your financial future into only one website is too risky. Once you get a foothold in this business, expand!

e diel, 17 qershor 2007

Prologue: What's so good about making money online?

Imagine, waking up whenever you want, lying in bed at noon. You prop yourself up, your back still lying on top of your fluffy white pillows, and you grab your laptop from your bedside table. You turn it on and you're instantly connected to the internet wirelessly. You go online and find out that you made $145.82 while you were sleeping. You then begin to work, in bed, for a few hours, and then spend the rest of your day doing what you want.

This is what happened to me when I first started making money online. Unfortunately, it isn't always like this, and although it's very easy to get into, it takes dedication to get to the point where you work only a few hours a day or less.

A few hours a day or less!?

Yep. And it's not wishful thinking. Depending what sort of work you do online, you can setup systems that will work for you. If you are an affiliate marketer, your sales copy, your pitch, is your 24-hour, 7-day a week salesman who will work tirelessly for you. If you run ads, they will run while you sleep. If you're doing more "traditional" e-commerce, your online store will take orders while you relax, sleep, eat, play with your kids, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This is why people who do this fulltime eventually have more time on their hands than when they had a job with paid vacation, holidays, etc.

Now imagine yourself on the beach, somewhere in the Caribbean, or perhaps a Mediterranean island, or perhaps in some exotic place on Earth. You have your laptop by your side, connected via satellite internet, and the screen is updating your earnings every minute. While you lay out in the sun, you're earning hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

Not many people get to this point, but it is very possible for many internet entrepreneurs. So what is so good about making money online in a nutshell?

you can work anywhere and everywhere in the world there is a computer and an internet connection
what you put out on the web stays there when you're not online, and will work for you like a fulltime salesman, manager, etc. while you sleep
earnings can be directly deposited into your bank account, so you don't have to deal with checks from dozens of streams of income
at first you have to work hard, but once you set up streams of automatic or near-automatic income, you can spend less time working and more time doing what you love

The internet is the largest global market the world has ever seen, millions more people are connecting to the internet every year. This means your income potential is virtually without limit.

Making Money Online Guide