If you search the internet you will find a multitude of adverts claiming to tell you how you can make $500 in 15mins, or £25,000.29 in a month. Search a little further and you will also find dozens of “review” sites claiming to tell you which money making systems work and which don’t.
If making money on the internet was really that simple then everyone would be doing it and we would all be rich. Before you get tempted to part with your cash, take a look at these adverts and ask yourself a few questions. How many of those review sites can you trust? Has the author written a review of a product and then included their affiliate link?
If you are new to earning money online, you will find yourself entering a confusing world, full of claims and counterclaims, offers, incentives, products and marketing hype.
Where can a beginner start?
You need to decide how you will start earning money online. If you have never even run a website before you will find that you have a lot to learn.
Setting up a free blog is good way to start. There are several sites that will allow you to do this, with blogspot.com being the best known. If you know nothing about running a site, this is a good way to start. Set up a blog on a topic that interests you, dive in and start experimenting with the options.
Finding Advice
Forums are a good source of advice. Join one or more forums aimed at internet marketers. Warriorforum.com is a good place to start. When you join any forum, take time to write an introductory post. Tell the forum members who you are and why you are joining. This will help to distinguish you from the spammers and encourage members to take you seriously and help you.
Take time to read previous posts – you will find many of your questions have already been answered. Use the forum’s search facility. Don’t be afraid to start taking part in discussions, but don’t make pointless posts – wait until you have something to say or ask.
Starting to Earn Money
Even if your first site is a free blog, you will want to start earning some money from it. This means two things – finding a way of earning money and bringing visitors to your site.
The main ways of earning money online are hosting advertising, selling your own product or selling someone else’s product and earning a commission.
A good way of starting is to sign up for Google Adsense. This is what’s known as “pay per click” advertising. The adverts appear on your site and you get paid every time a visitor clicks on one of the adverts. Google is not the only provider of pay per click advertising – take some time to research your options.
Next, look at some of the affiliate networks to see if you can find a product or products that you want to sell. You might want to pick products that fit with the subject of your site – or you might want to pick a product and then design a site dedicated to selling that product. Take a look at some of the affiliate networks, such as clickbank, paydot.com, click2sell, tradedoubler or affiliate future.
Getting visitors to your site
Once you have added content to your blog or site and found a product or advertising, you need to get visitors to come to your site. You need to let the world know that your site is there.
There are many ways of driving traffic to your site. As a beginner you will probably be looking for free ways of bringing visitors to your site. These ways may be free, but they will take time.
Joining one or more internet marketing forums has already been mentioned above. Most will allow you to put a link to your site in your signature. Look for forums related to the subject of your blog or site. Join them and make helpful, relevant posts. This will encourage fellow members to look at the site in your signature.
Social bookmarking is an effective way of bringing traffic to your site. There are many of these sites. Some of the most popular are digg, clipmarks, reddit, del.icio.us and stumbleupon. Social networking sites are also good sources of traffic. Join Facebook, Twitter or MySpace and tell your friends, family and the world about your site.
Article marketing (or bum marketing) is another effective and free traffic generation technique. Write articles on topics relating to your site. Submit these articles to one or more of the article marketing sites. Make sure you read each site’s terms and conditions. Some will not allow you to submit the same article to other sites. Some will only allow a link to your site in the author resource box at the end of the article. Some of the best known and most effective article sites include Ezinearticles, Goarticles and ArticleAlley. There are dozens of article sites, so do your homework.
Before you write an article, make sure to do your keyword research. The Google keyword tool is free to use and will tell you how many times a given word or phrase is searched for. The tool will also suggest related terms for you to use. Once you have decided on one or more keywords, you can write your article(s) around them. Limit each article to one or two keywords and don’t overuse them. Just make sure that your main keyword is included in the article title and is used a couple of times in the body of the article. Note that a “keyword” can be a word or short phrase. Phrases are often referred to as “long tail” keywords.
You will also want to find out about search engine optimisation. SEO means writing your site in a way that will encourage search engines to find it. Spend some time to decide which keyword(s) your site is targeting. Once you have decided on these, use the internet to do some in depth research on seo. To start you off, here are a few pointers.
If possible, include your keyword in the domain name. For example, www.mymainkeyword.com or www.mymainkeyword.blogspot.com (if you are using a blog).
If you are using several keywords in your site, consider using some as page names. For example, www.mymainkeyword.com/secondkeyword . You can use your keywords as headings for pages or posts and also in the body of any text and articles. Don’t overuse them – you want people to enjoy reading your site.
Search engines like content – spend some time writing about your subject. Use the internet and/or your local library. Try and find a new angle or new information to encourage visitors to your site.
If you are using blogging software, you will probably find a box where you can enter the “tags” for each post. Use this to enter your keywords.
Starting to earn money online takes time and patience. Don’t be disheartened if visitors don’t immediately flood to your site. You are on a learning curve. You will learn from your successes and from your mistakes. Nothing can beat the feeling of making your first sale, or seeing the first clicks on our pay per click adverts. Go for it. You have nothing to lose. Internet marketing is hardwork, but it is also fun. Through the forums you will make new friends and contacts. The world is your oyster. Go for it.
Soon you too can start earning money online.
