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How You Can Make Money Online by Will Edwards

 

At a popular internet marketing forum I frequent, I have lost count of how many times I have seen people post the above question despite the fact that there is a ton of useful help and advice right under their noses. So today, I thought I would do my best to provide a reasonably comprehensive answer in the hope that it might help a few newbies in getting started.

After 10 years of marketing online, I guess I have a different perspective but I can still remember how it felt at the start; wondering if it was possible to make money online; thinking there must be some crucial piece of information that I was missing; wondering why everyone, but me seemed to be making money. Well, right away, let me answer those questions for you:

1. Yes – it IS definitely possible for ANYONE to make money online
2. You may be missing information, but you are probably missing less than you think
3. Don’t worry, a LOT of other people are simply TALKING, not doing

Right at the start of the web, before the Dot Com Bubble burst, I remember asking a colleague what ways he thought it might be possible to make money online. That was in the days before Adsense and even Affiliate Programs – amazing to think of a web without them, but that was back around 1995.

Anyway, his answer was something along the following lines:

1. You could sell stuff (products and/or services)
2. You could charge people for advertising

These are STILL the best ways to make money online. Of course things have changed a little, but Affiliate Programs are still essentially selling stuff and Adsense is still essentially advertising. In my case, I now have three reliable streams of income:

1. I sell my own products
2. I use Adsense
3. I recommend other people’s products/services (Affiliate Programs)

Over the years, the most profitable income stream has been selling my own products but, of course, it takes time and effort to get the product and sales message right. However, if you do, you will find there are many other people who would be willing to promote your products for you if you setup your own Affiliate Program (ClickBank is an easy way).

There is no question in my mind that Adsense is the easiest method because you get paid for clicks i.e. you don’t have to do any selling. The problem with this method is that you may have to get a large number of visitors to make a decent return. That said, there are many people who do very well out of Adsense. The key to success with this model is choosing niches with high-paying click values and then working on optimising your ad placements.

As for Affiliate Programs, I have genuinely found it difficult to find good programs that meet my own criteria for selection. First, I need to be completely happy that the product/service actually delivers value, then I have to be happy with the marketing message and methods. As I said, not many programs manage to cut the mustard as far as I am concerned. However, there are genuinely good programs out there if you look for them.

So there you go – that’s how to do it.

Now, I am conscious of the fact that when people post the question ‘how do I make money’ or something similar, that is not the kind of answer they generally want. What they are hoping for is that someone will tell them of a secret method that involves very little time and effort; something that requires perhaps typing a few things into a system, maybe clicking a few buttons and then watching the money pour into their Paypal account.

Well, guess what? That is EXACTLY why you find sales pages that tell you all of that nonsense i.e. because that’s what people are searching for. Those pages do NOT exist because there IS A MAGIC KEY … they exist because PEOPLE ARE SEARCHING FOR THE MAGIC KEY!

Read it AGAIN!!!

I know it is brutal and I know it may not be what you wanted to hear, but it is TRUE! And if you let it sink in, you could save yourself a lot of time and trouble looking and you could also save yourself a lot of money buying products that promise the MAGIC KEY solution.

To return to the subject of how YOU can make money: pick one of the methods above and run with it. Become an expert in Adsense or Affiliate Marketing or start creating your own products and services and start selling them. Sure it will take you a fair amount of time to master any of these methods but they all WORK!!!

Now get to work!

Article courtesy of White Dove Books http://www.whitedovebooks.co.uk

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