Would you believe there are tens of thousands of people who have found ways to make money online? Not only that, but their incomes are significant and growing, due to little competition and low cost of entry. If I can do it, then there is no reason why you can't. You can literally begin making money right away.
There are many, many, opportunities online, but here are the 5 factors you really need to consider, to guarantee your success:
1. Set your goals.
As with any business you need to set goals. Goals help you visualize where you want to go, and keep you motivated when you get up in the morning. You goal may be to earn $500 or $10000 a month, it may be to take that dream vacation, or it may be to give up your job. These are all great goals. It is imperative that you write them down and reread them often. You need a short term goal - e.g monthly goal, to keep you motivated from day to day and a longer term goal 1-2 years - to keep you on track and prevent you from chucking it in. I am confident that if you adopt a positive attitude and embrace your goals then you will soon be making money online.
2. Take time to research.
As I alluded to earlier there are many people making money online - and there are thousands of different businesses that you can try. The internet is a mine field of information and “making money online” opportunities are not difficult to find. However you will need to decipher the genuine opportunities from the scams. Many online promises are just methods to extract money from you. Some do's and don'ts
DON'T fall for the “get rich quick schemes” that promise huge returns in record time
DO try and email or telephone for more information
DO search online for feedback on the opportunity e.g. try name of opportunity + scam
DON'T part with money without consulting a friend you can trust and/or sleeping on it.
3. Find something that you like.
You're the boss now - so do yourself a favor and choose something you enjoy. This will greatly enhance your chances of success. A few things to consider:
Do you enjoy writing?
Do you enjoy talking to people?
Do you enjoy working on the computer?
Do you have a flair for sales?
Are there particular things that you are passionate about e.g sports, music?
Do you want to be contactable 24x7?
Do you want to have flexible/fixed hours?
Personally I like to work on my computer on my own time and my choice of internet business matches this. Find out what suits you, and you can weed out the business ventures which are not for you. Don't settle for second best - choose something you are comfortable with.
4. Find something worth your while.
While it is a good idea to avoid the sales pitch that promises the sun, moon, and stars; it is also important that you don't take the safe option - that guarantees $5 an hour for sending emails, filling our surveys, or licking stamps. These amount to you underselling yourself, because the opportunities of making money on the internet are so much greater. Look for systems which offer a good monthly return for a few hours work a day - if you find something with a residual income all the better.
5. Anything for an easier life!
One of my motivations for venturing into internet marketing was to create an easier life for myself. As I sat in my day job I used to think - “There must be easier ways to make money” - and there are! Earning a living online means that you have the luxury of working from home and choosing your own hours. It is important that you can exploit these perks, by being able to take time off, take extra vacations and spend more time with your family. You need to avoid the 40-50 hours a week for the sake of your sanity.
You have taken the first step by reading this article - you now just need to act upon it. I wish you the very best in your online endeavors.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
5 keys to making money online
The Top three reasons people Fail online!
Most people come online with the thoughts of getting rich
quick...And then fall flat on their faces! They get the get rich
quick virus, it's quite contagious and extremely deadly to your
self esteem and your business!
You need to get rid of that virus by implementing, knowledge,
hard work and the right mindset, learn from other people's
mistakes and understand why they have failed online, so that you
can avoid making the same mistakes, when you do make a mistake,
shake it off and get on with your life, take that mistake and
turn it into knowledge.
Here are the top three reasons why most people fail online:
1) Don't have the money to start, or don't want to spend it!.
You have to think that starting a online business is the same as
starting an offline business, when you start an offline business,
there are certain things that you have to be willing to pay for
if you want your business to succeed.
And the same thing goes for your online business, and if you're
not willing to spend the money on these things then your business
will go nowhere!
A list of what you need is:
A great web-host (this is the lifeline of your business)
A good follow up system (autoresponders)
Knowledge (if you have to buy into a membership or course to
learn what it takes to build your business then do it)
You have to spend some money on advertising..(eZine advertising,
Pay-Per-Click or whatever)
(Just make sure you do your reasearch on what your fixing to join
or purchase!)
2) They give up before it get's going!
This happens all the time, people come on line with the hopes of
getting rich, they join one scheme after another thinking this
one is going to make me rich, as soon as they receive another
email scheme, they jump on it..
This keeps going for awhile, untill they get so frustrated that
they just give up and say it's impossible to make money online!
One of the reasons is that most people lack persistence and the
ability to hang in there when the going gets tough. If you lack
persistence, you will have a tough time making it online! ("If
you do make it")
Here is a list of ways to help give your business a boost!
Do joint ventures with other marketers to grow your business.
Join forums, offer your help to people, get joint venture
partners(just don't spam the boards)
Follow the steps of someone who is already successful online!
Don't be afraid to make a mistake online, we've all made
mistakes, and will continue to, just make sure you learn from
them..
Start an affiliate program!
Make sure you collect the names of your visitors and follow up
with them..
3) Lack of knowledge -
Knowledge is power, if you want to make it online you have to
learn all you can! And put what you know into action, use your
knowledge, don't just let it set up there and collect brain dust,
anyone can learn if they really want to, you just have to have
the will, and the strive!
You will always be learning, there is always someone out there
that can teach you something or ignite and ol' flame that you let
burn down.. all I can say is..learn, learn, learn!
If you stay persistant, learn all you can, and stay focused, you
can do anything and become anything..Want to be a guru? then do
what the gurus did...Work for it, give it all you got and learn
all you can and NEVER EVER give up!!
Saturday, March 8, 2008
How to Make Money Online Easy $7000 Work from Home FREE
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How To Make Money Online Without Spending Money
I was up late watching Sxephil videos and reading my emails, and this question came up. Some people asked how to make money online without spending any. Making money online can be an easy trick, but you need the right tools to make money.. Some money making tools are cheap, some free, some expensive. You usually do not need expensive tools to make money online. So here is how to make money online without spending money, or atleast spending very little. The first way is a program called AW surveys. This is a great way to make money online without spending it
Friday, February 22, 2008
Effective AdSense Tips from Google
I just went over to AdSense official blog and found that Google have created an Optimization Demo where you can view and learn Google suggested Adsense optimization techniques to maximize your AdSense performance. The demo will show you the ad positions that are proven to be generating high CTR with screen shots of AdSense websites and other useful AdSense tips like what ad formats and color you should use......
If you are a beginner or an experienced webmaster not satisfied with your current AdSense CTR and earning, I suggest you take a look at Optimization Demo to learn some techniques that you can apply instantly to your site and blog.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
How Bloggers Make Money from Blogs
My Personal Income Streams
As an update to this post I’ve more recently written one on How I make Money Blogging which highlights the most profitable ways that I use blogs to generate income.
How do bloggers make money from blogs?
I’ve long advised that bloggers seeking to make money from blogging spread their interests across multiple revenue streams so as not to put all their eggs in one basket.
The wonderful thing is that this is becoming easier and easier to do 2005 has seen many options opening up. I thought I’d take a look at some of the methods that bloggers are currently using to make money through blogs.
Income Streams for Bloggers - How to Make Money Blogging
Advertising Programs - Perhaps the most obvious changes in the past few months have been with the addition of a variety of viable advertising options for bloggers looking to make money from their blogs. The most common way bloggers seem to earn money online is via the contextual ad program from Google - Adsense. A more recent addition that many are using successfully are Chitika’s eMiniMalls and WidgetBucks, Text Link Ads.
Azoogle Ads, Intelli Txt, DoubleClick, Tribal Fusion, Adbrite, Clicksor, AdHearUs, Kanoodle, Pheedo, TextAds, Bidvertiser, Fastclick and Value Click (to name just some of the options) and there is a smorgasbord of options. Of course there is more to come with MSN Adcenter and YPN both in beta testing and with a variety of other advertising system currently in development (YPN is only available to US publishers).
Lastly there’s BlogAds - one of the first blog specific ad networks.
RSS Advertising - The past 12 months have seen some advances in RSS Advertising also. I’m yet to hear of any bloggers making big money blogging through it to this point - but as improvements are made to the ad programs exploring this I’m sure we’ll start to see examples of it being profitable.
Sponsorship - In addition to the array of advertising programs that are available to join there is a growing awareness in the business of the value and opportunity that exists for them to advertise directly on blogs. I’m hearing more and more examples of this and have been fortunately to have a couple of ad campaigns of my own in the past month - one with Adobe a couple of weeks ago and another just completed with Ricoh for a new digicam over at my Digital Camera Blog. These are not isolated cases - as I say I know of many blogs exploring sponsorship with advertisers at present and suspect we’ll see more of it in the year ahead. Sponsorship is also happening on a post by post basis with some bloggers being paid to write on certain topics by companies - either in one off or a regular fashion - and they are able to make big money from their blogs doing so.
Affiliate Programs - There are larger affiliate programs like Amazon, Linkshare, Clickbank and Commission Junction but also literally thousands of others from the large to the very small.
Digital Assets - Increasing numbers of bloggers have been developing other digital assets to support and add revenue streams to their blogs. By this I mean that I’m increasingly seeing e-books, courses and tele-seminars being run by bloggers. My recent foray into this with the first series of the six figure blogging course that Andy and I ran a few weeks ago and have just released the study version of. This type of activity will only increase in future - in fact this week I’ve seen numerous examples of bloggers running courses.
Blog Network Opportunities - with the rise in popularity of Blog Networks - bloggers are also being presented with more places to earn an income from their blogging - by writing for and with others. While it might be difficult to get a writing gig with one of the bigger networks - there are plenty who are always asking for new bloggers to join and who are willing to pay bloggers using a variety of payment models. While there are distinct advantages of blogging for yourself - blogging for an established network who will handle a lot of the set up/promotion/admin/SEO etc has it’s advantages also. More and more bloggers are combining writing for themselves on their own blogs with taking on blog network blogs as additional income streams.
Business Blog Writing Opportunities - as blogging has risen in it’s profile as a medium more and more businesses are starting blogs. Many of these companies have internal staff take on blogging duties - but an increasing number of them are hiring specialist bloggers to come on and run their blogs. I know of a number of bloggers who in the past month or two have been approached for such paid work. Check out Bloggers for Hire if you’re looking for this type of work.
Non Blogging Writing Opportunities - Also becoming more common are bloggers being hired to write in non blogging mediums. Manolo’s recent coup of a column in the Washington Post is just one example of this as bloggers are increasingly being approached to write for newspapers, magazines and other non blog websites. Along side this is the rise of bloggers as published book authors - this is to the extent that one blogger I spoke with this week complained to me that they were one of the few bloggers than they knew who didn’t have a book deal!
Donations - Tip Jars and donation buttons have been a part of blogging for years now but this last year saw a number of bloggers go full time after fund raising drives. Perhaps the most high profile of these was Jason Kottke of kottke.org who through the generosity of his readership was able to quit his job and become a full time blogger.
Flipping Blogs - Also more common in 2005 was the practice of ‘Blog Flipping’ - or selling of blogs. This has happened both on an individual blog level (I can think of about 20 blogs that sold this year) but also on a network level (the most obvious of these being the 8 figure sale of Weblogs Inc to AOL).
Merchandising - My recent attempt to sell ProBlogger.net T-shirts wasn’t a raging success, but it is an example of how an increasing number of bloggers are attempting to make a few extra dollars from their blogs by selling branded products through programs like Cafepress. While I didn’t have a lot of success with merchandising - quite a few larger blogs are seeing significant sales - especially blogs with a cult following. I’m not at liberty to discuss details - but I know of one largish blog which will see sales over $20,000 in merchandise for the calendar year of 2005.
Consulting and Speaking - While it has been popular for established consultants to add blogs to their businesses we’re also starting to see bloggers with no consulting background able to make money by charging readers for their time in consulting scenarios BECAUSE of the profile that their blogs have built them. Blogging has the ability to establish people as experts on niche topics and we all know the value of being perceived as an expert. I spoke to one blogger last month who charges himself out at over $200 an hour for speaking and consulting work - his area of expertise was something that he knew little about 18 months ago - but through his blog he’s become a leader in his field and a minor celebrity in his industry.
As time rolls on there are more and more ways that bloggers make money from their blogs opening up. Feel free to suggest your own ideas and experiences in comments below.
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Making Money with Your Blog from A to Z
We've come a long way baby. It occurs to me that despite the fact we live in a Web 2.0 economy that may eat itself, there are an ever expanding array of ways to make money with your blog. So many in fact that the list stretches from A to Z. Yup, it's time for another list...
A - Amazon Associates
B - BlogAds
C - Commission Junction
D - Denton
E - Events
F- Federated Media
G - Google Adsense
H - The Honor System
I - Industry Brains
J - Jobs
K - Kanoodle
L - Linkshare
M - Minmalls
N - Netscape
O - Opine Research Reports
P - Packaged Content
Q - Quit Your Day Job
R - RSS Advertising
S - Schwag
T - Tagword
U - US Web
V - Think Viral
W - Washington Post Blog Rolls
X - Xray your life story with Dandelife
Y - Yahoo Publisher Network
Z - Zzzz. Earn money while you sleep.
Advertising Programs (CPC/CPM)
There are many popular blogs on the Web today, but many of them are not taking advantage of the many opportunities available for monetization. As such, I would like to provide a series over the next couple weeks where I’ll go into the details of each of the more popular options used in today’s top blogs.
Before jumping in, here is a breakdown of the different money-makers I intend to cover.
Advertising Programs (CPC/CPM)
Google AdSense is a contextual advertising service. It offers advertisers the opportunity to receive inexpensive traffic, (which is done through Google’s AdWords service), and publishers the chance to make money by displaying on-site advertisements created by the advertisers.
Yahoo! Publisher Network, or YPN, is a contextual advertising method that mimics AdSense. It offers advertisers the opportunity to receive inexpensive traffic, (which is done through Yahoo’s Search Marketing service), and publishers the chance to make money by displaying these advertisements on-site.
Kontera ContentLink is another contextual advertising service. Unlike AdSense and YPN, ContentLink highlights various keywords on your page to make it appear like a link. When the reader hovers over one of these link, an in-page pop-up will appear containing the advertisement.
Text Link Ads provides advertisers the opportunity to purchase links directly on publisher’s websites at a flat monthly fee. The cost for a link depends on site popularity, link position, and number of links being sold.
Affiliate Programs (CPA)
Amazon Associates provides publishers the opportunity to display affiliate links and details for Amazon.com products in a variety of formats, including product images, text links, and banners.
AuctionAds is an affiliate opportunity whereby eBay auctions are displayed in an advertisement-like format on your website. AuctionAds appear as banners and are available in several formats similar to those of AdSense and YPN ads.
ClickBank is a popular affiliate marketing program for publishers and affiliates alike. Almost all of the products found on ClickBank are electronic, with a large majority of the products being e-books.
Commission Junction, or CJ, is one of the largest affiliate marketing networks online. CJ serves over 1,500 customers, including eBay, Buy.com, and Yahoo! Unlike ClickBank, the majority of products offered through CJ are tangible.
Sponsored Post Programs
PayPerPost is the first popular program to offer compensation for posting specific blog content. Advertisers list available opportunities at a flat price with specific posting requirements, which publishers can then accept. PayPerPost Direct allows advertisers to find bloggers directly as well.
ReviewMe, like PayPerPost, offers the opportunity to earn money through sponsored blog posts. ReviewMe is mostly known for allowing advertisers to find bloggers, but there is a marketplace for publishers to find flat-rate blogging opportunities as well.
Sponsored Reviews (not yet reviewed) allows advertisers to list opportunities within a price range that publishers can bid within. Advertisers can counter-offer, allowing for haggling between both parties. Like PayPerPost and ReviewMe, advertisers can contact publishers directly as well.
BloggerWave (not yet reviewed) is one of the most recent sponsored post programs. While offering the same type of service as the above programs, the opportunities available on the site may differ depending on the user base.
How to Make Money From Your Blog - Direct Methods
Having thought through whether you should blog for money it is now worth taking a look at some of the different models for doing so.
I tend to break the different models that bloggers are using to make money from blogging into two areas - Direct and Indirect methods.
Direct Income Earning Methods - these methods are where a blogger earns an income directly FROM their blog.
Indirect Income Earning Methods - these methods are where a blogger earns an income BECAUSE of their blog.
Most blogs tend to fall into one or the other of these methods - although there is nothing to stop bloggers experimenting with elements of both ( I’ve seen a few bloggers get into trouble with this.
In this post I’ll look at 8 direct income earning methods and in the next post of this series I’ll explore indirect methods. Please note that on occasion in the following post there will be few affiliate links to services that I use and have had some success with. These will be marked with (aff) after them.
Direct Income Earning Methods for Bloggers
1. Advertising
There are many ways of selling advertising space on a blog (this could almost be a series of it’s own) but some of the different advertising options that I see bloggers experimenting with include:
- Contextual Advertising - Programs like AdSense and YPN (beta) are very popular with bloggers and are probably the most common income stream being used by them today (MSN are developing one too). In short - these programs scan the content of your blog to assertion what it’s topic is and attempt to put contextually relevant ads (text and image) onto your blog. They are generally simple to use and involve pasting some code into your blog’s templates. Payment is on a ‘per click’ basis (referred to as CPC or ‘cost per click’ ads). Contextual ads suit blogs that have a particular niche topic, especially if it has some sort of commercial angle (ie it has products and services associated with it). They are not so good with ‘general’ type blogs (ie many topics) and/or political/spiritual blogs which argue just one side of a case (this confuses AdSense). I write much more extensively on how to use AdSense on your blog here.
- Other CPC Advertising - There are a variety of other ad systems that pay on a per click basis which are not contextual in nature (which is important as systems like AdSense do not allow you to run contextual ads on the same page view as them). These systems include Chitika’s eMiniMalls (aff) which I reviewed here.
- Impression Based Ads - Impression based ads pay a small amount for every person who views the advertisement. The amount that they pays varies from program to program (and ad to ad) and is generally a fraction of a cent. There are a variety of ad systems around like this including Fastclick (aff) which I reviewed here and Tribal Fusion. Impression based ads won’t earn you much if you don’t have a lot of traffic but can be great if you do.
- Blog Ads - BlogAds have become something of an institution when it comes to advertising on blogs. They traditionally have had a focus upon monetizing political blogs but are expanding their focus lately. The beauty of them is that bloggers set their own rates and can accept or reject advertisers that apply to them to be featured on their blogs. These ads put the control of what ads show and how much they earn into the hands of the blogger. The downside is that if you price them too high you could never have any ads showing at all. They can also be difficult to be accepted into as a publisher as these days they only accept people into the system if they have a someone who is already in ’sponsor’ or recommend the new publisher.
- Text Ads - Another increasingly popular way to sell ads on your blog is to look into text links. The beauty of these are that they don’t take up much room and that depending upon the system you choose to run them you can have control over which advertisers you accept and reject. AdBrite (aff) is one such system that gives you control in a similar way to BlogAds in that you set your own prices and approve all ads. They also other other formats of ads. Text Link Ads (aff) is another text link seller that more and more bloggers are using. The beauty of both of these systems is that they have a pool of advertisers already so you don’t have to go looking for your own advertisers. Their systems are also both very automated and are just a matter of pasting some code onto your blog. I use them both and while they don’t earn anywhere near as much as AdSense or Chitika for me they add up over the year and have done well for me. Bidvertiser and Adzaar are other system that I know are popular with some (we’ve used them quite successfully on b5media although I have little personal experience with them).
- RSS Ads - An increasingly popular way for people to read blogs is via RSS. As a result publishers and ad providers have been keen to find ways to place ads in feeds. These attempts have been met with a variety of success levels. I’m yet to hear of too many people making big dollars with RSS ads yet but the ad systems seem to be improving. AdSense offers RSS ads to some of it’s publishers (you have to have a certain number of impressions first) as does YPN. Feedburner is a tool I’ve used to help monetise my own feeds - they give publishers three options (1. AdSense if you’ve been approved by them, 2. Amazon affiliate program and 3. if you have a lot of subscribers (over 500) they have an Ad Network). Pheedo is another system that you might like to try (although I’ve not had much experience with it).
- Other Ads Systems - In addition to the above systems (most of which I’ve used myself) are many other advertising options which I’ve not had experience with and so won’t personally recommend. I’m sure they are worth experimenting with however as I see many of them being used by bloggers every day. Here they are in no particular order:
- AdGenta, CrispAds, Clicksor, Intelli Txt, Peak Click, Double Click, Industry Brains, AdHearUs, Kanoodle, AVN, Pheedo, Adknowledge, YesAdvertising, RevenuePilotTextAds, SearchFeed, Target Point, OneMonkey, and TextAds. Feel free to add your own and tell us how you’ve gone with them in comments below.
2. Sponsorship
Another form of advertising that a smaller number of bloggers are using is to find their own advertisers. All of the above systems have the advantage of finding you advertisers (or at least assisting in the automation of ads to your blog) but as your blog grows in profile and influence you might find other options for private deals come up.
The big blog networks have people dedicated to the task of finding advertisers (often working through ad agencies) but smaller bloggers might find this worthwhile also. I’ve been selling ads on my Digital Camera Blog for two years now and as it’s grown in traffic and profile and managed to attract larger companies (who are willing to pay more) to buys space. Currently the blog features ads from Adobe who have bought a combination of banner, newsletter and text ads.
The key if you’re going to take this approach is to target advertisers in your niche that have products that closely relate to what you’re writing about. There are a variety of ads that you can offer them including banner ads, buttons, text links, mentions in newsletters and even individual post sponsorships. I would highly recommend that you always make it clear to readers that your post is a sponsored one when you’re writing a sponsored post.
3. Affiliate Programs
Affiliate programs are where you take a commission for referring a reader who purchases a product or service to a company. Probably the most common of these for bloggers is Amazonhere). Other affiliate programs that represent many different companies and products include Linkshare, Commission Junction and Clickbank. which has tens of thousands of products that you can link to (I reviewed it
Affiliate programs take some work if you want to get the most out of them (perhaps more work than advertising) but can be lucrative if you match the right program with the right blog/topic. If you want to explore affiliate programs more you might like to read 10 tips for using affiliate programs on you blog.
4. Selling/Flipping Blogs
The idea of selling (or flipping) your blog is one that many bloggers have in the back of their minds for ‘one day’ but in reality it is not something that is overly common… yet (I think this is changing). Probably the largest sale is that of Weblogs Inc (a network of blogs) which sold to AOL for a reported $25 million. Of course this is the stuff that most of us can only dream of - but there are examples of smaller blogs being sold, either privately or via auctions on sites like eBay and SitePoint. One such auction was that of the Blog Herald which took place here.
Starting a blog with the main goal of selling it down the track is one that I’ve heard of a number of bloggers doing but few have been successful. Rather than starting with this intention I think if you start with the intention of building a quality site that has a large readership and it’s own good income stream you are more likely to find buyers down the track.
5. Donations and Tip Jars
A very small number of blogs have a history of making good money with these (Jason Kottke being one of them). To be successful with asking for money from readers you’ll want to have a large and loyal readership (and a rich one might help too). Most bloggers just don’t have the critical mass or the cult following to make it work.
6. Merchandise
Another method that some blogs use with reasonable effect is to sell T-Shirts, Mugs, Stickers etc with the blog’s name, logo and/or taglines on it. This is another idea that will probably only work if you either have a brilliantly designed merchandise range and/or you have a cult-like status as a blogger with some fanatical readers who are a little obsessive about your blog. Some blog topics lend themselves to this more than others.
7. Selling Subscriptions
The idea of charging readers for content is one that surfaces from time to time. While there are numerous websites around the web that do this successfully (community membership sites) I’m yet to see many (any) blogs do it well. The problem that most bloggers who have tried it have run into is that most topics that you could think to start a blog about already have free sites available. To make it succeed you would need to have some sort of premium/exclusive content and/or real expertise on a topic.
8. Blog Networks
Another emerging income source for bloggers are blog networks. There are two ways to make money here. Firstly you can start a network and contract bloggers to write for you or secondly you might like to join a blog network as a writer. There are many networks out there and all have their own strengths and weaknesses. I’ll attempt to write a post on what to think about when you’re looking at whether to join a network later in this series.
Next in the series we’ll look at indirect ways of making money because of your blog.
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