What Does It Really Take To Make Money Online?

I better get to this sooner rather than later…

I'm going to present the condensed version of what it takes to make money online – there are a lot of options, and you can choose what works best for you. For now lets just keep this simple…

The Product or Service

What you sell is more important than how you sell it.

Understand that the most profitable product or service is one that you have created and you have control over. Until you get to that point – where you can create your own product or service, consider the roll of affiliate. Being an affiliate just means that you market someone else's product or service and get paid for your efforts.

As an affiliate you can choose products from many sites including the best known Clickbank. There are other networks where you can earn your commission from promoting real-world products like Dish Network, Direct TV, and more.

Here are just a few of the places to look… Clickbank, Commission Junction, Link Share, Google, Amazon.com, eBay, and others. In fact, almost every product or service is available someplace online through an affiliate program.

What To Sell

I think the 'What to sell' topic is the place that most people stumble…

The best way to state this is to say that you want to pick something that people are buying! I don't mean that it's something that people just like – I'm talking about something that is so hot that once you put it out there you can't stop the people from hitting your site and buying what you are selling.

Here is an example – it's the beginning of October and within a couple of weeks people (adults – who have money to buy) will be participating in Halloween. So what you say… have you looked at the sexy adult costumes that are out there? Now if you knew how all of this works what do you think would happen if you became an affiliate to the Playboy Sexy Costume site – yes this does exist… and what if you did your research and created a site to showcase these sexy costumes?

Hmmm…

BTW – if you wanted to be an affiliate for the Playboy Sexy Costume site you would need to have a Commission Junction account and apply to be an affiliate… http://cj.com to get to the Commission Junction web site.

How To Sell Whatever You Are Going To Sell

There are a couple of ways to actually present and promote the item(s) that you have chosen to sell. Ignore the fact that you will have to get people to a web site or web page for now…

In the beginning, people who have limited financial means might choose to use a free Blog like http://wordpress.com where you would have a shared environment to create your WordPress Blog. There are limitations, but this is someplace to start.

The beginner could also use Squidoo – http://www.squidoo.com – which is like a Blog in the way that the world sees it, but on Squidoo they call these pages or posts "a Lens". Don't worry – I didn't get it at first either.

So what would you write about?

You might be an expert or appear to be an expert on the subject at hand.

Maybe you are simply reviewing several products/services in a specific niche. Regardless of what you right about, you are not selling on these pages – you are pre-selling or suggesting a product/service – a big difference. The more you write the better your chances of course.

Now I'm not going to go into details here as there are so many programs that do an excellent gob of explaining how this part works.

Now keep in mind that you initially will be doing this for a specific niche or a specific product/service. As you grow your business you will just be replicating this to other products/services.

Initially the free sites will work, but at some point you will want to switch to your own web site(s) and your own hosting account – you will have total control over how this works.

Simple re-direct to the product web site

In some cases it is permitable or desirable to simply redirect a specific URL that you control to the product/service web site through your very own affiliate link – so that you get credit for the sale. Keep in mind that this isn't always possible – in many cases like coming off of Google or Yahoo, you won't be allowed to redirect.

Visit Squidoo and the WordPress site I showed you above – you will see how people are using these FREE services to make affiliate $$$.

Driving Traffic To Your Squidoo Lens or Blog

The only thing left to do is to get people to your pre-sales or review pages. There are several ways to do this…

The FREE method

If you are on a really tight budget you can just wait for your buyers to find you – they will eventually!

Seriously – there are several ways to get buyers to your sales pages. IF you are using Squidoo or a Blog to promote a product or service, you will know that these two generate a lot of traffic on their own… people will find you!

Keep in mind that generating 'Organic' traffic means FREE traffic! This means that your pages are showing up high on the results page when someone searches for what you are selling.

To get your ad or review or whatever you have created high in the search results. This is accomplished through careful writing and using the key word/phrase that you are trying to rank high on creatively in the title and throughout what you write.

Articles - some promote writing articles and submitting them to article sites like ezinarticles.com. Articles work, but may take some time to start generating traffic to your web site.

Forum & Blog Posts – some promote plastering your opinions on other people's Blog sites, or adding your site URL to your signature on Forums. These work too – but again, you will need to do a lot of work to get these to register and actually drive traffic to your site.

Social Networking – you can certainly use MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and others to promote what you are doing and get traffic to your sites. This is very easy to do and it shouldn't cost you a cent. The time thing comes into play again, and of course it depends on how many people you have following you on these sites.

Other means – there are a whole lot of other options too. You need to be aware that just about anything that comes in contact with other people both online and off can be used to promote your site(s). Don't pass up opportunities…

The Pay method

This is what everyone is trying to avoid – paying to promote their affiliate products and services…

Google PPC – or Pay Per Click text ads – this is where you create campaigns on Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engine sites – your ads are displayed as you define in the search results of people looking for things online. While some avoid this as a means to get buyers to your offer, it is one of the most effective ways to accomplish your marketing.

Google banner ads on specific web sites (content network)  – Google has an option that I don't think many beginners use – they should! Create standard banner ads and through Googles network have them appear on specific site. This is usually used to have your ads appear on those sites who are using Google Adsense to monitize their web sites. More about this later!

I've had very good success using simple banner ads on competing web sites and even MySpace – yes MySpace does support Google adsense.

MySpace Ads – This is new and very inexpensive. You have access to the whole MySpace community. You can easily create graphic ads using their tools. Ads will only appear on MySpace pages when you use their advertising.

Advertising Networks and PPV/PPC – There are advertising networks out there that sell advertising space on very popular web sites. Usually these sites have a graphic or link with a lable like "Advertise Here". These networks also provide Pay per view and pay per click billing models. If your ads are sharp and attract a lot of clicks, the pay per view model might be very cost effective. One network to check out is http://etology.com .

There are others – you just need to find them!

How To Pick Something To Promote or Sell

Sometimes picking just one thing to promote is really difficult. So don't just promote or sell one thing! Choose a niche – like health, or relationships, or pets, or ???

I can tell you that what continues to be really hot online are the 3 that I just mentioned….

Health

• Losing weight
• Six-pack Abs
• Improving your health
• Dealing with some specific illness

Relationships

• Picking up women
• Getting your ex back
• Improving your sex life

Pets

• Dog Training
• Getting your dog to stop bitting/barking
• Dog Grooming

Finances

• Setting up a budget
• Making money
• Saving money
• Getting out of debt
• Job loss or Job protection tips

Usually topics where there is a change happening are good choices. We will cover more topics over time, but this is the beginning.

Start with one Niche and one product. Then add more products to that Niche and then expand to multiple Niches!

To Your Continued Success…

Michael Hobach