Have I Replaced My Salary Yet – Am I Making A Living Online?

It’s been just over a year since I was laid off from my full time job at Hewlett Packard Corporation. I was a JAVA developer there making a nice living which did make it hard to leave on my own. That said, my lay off didn’t come as a huge surprise since roughly 6 months prior to being laid off I told my boss that I wasn’t happy with the work I was being assigned, and I wasn’t sure if I was going to stay. So I was very blessed to get shoved out the door last July, because without that push it was going to be hard to leave that job despite being ready to leave.

Anyway, last July I started doing this “online thing” full time.

I know you might wondering:

So how has that worked out for you?

Have you replaced your nice regular paycheck at HP yet?

Well, yes I have!

Well actually it’s “yes we have”!

My wife Jill and I are running a web design and web marketing company, and we have fully replaced my salary. Now, mind you it’s a lot of work. We both put in about 30 hours of work every week, which amounts to a total of 60 hours a week between the two of us. So it’s not a cake walk by any means.

Right now, Jill handles most of the sales and networking, as well as managing our web design contractors and most of our web design client interaction. If that wasn’t enough, she’s busy becoming our social media expert. I’m in charge of the SEO, PPC, Internet marketing plans, managing our Internet marketing contractors, handling the business operations and the client interactions for our marketing clients. We do quite a bit of overlapping work when it comes to interacting with clients, acquiring joint venture partners and building relationships. It’s been working out really well for us, and the future is looking pretty amazing.

So, yes we have been able to make money online and so can you! In the coming months I will talk a lot more about some of the factors that have helped us build a successful business.

Before I Go!

Before I leave, I just wanted to say that I really do want to help you succeed, BUT everyday I get questions from people wanting FREE advice, and neither my wife or I have the time to answer everyone’s questions personally. If I answered every question I got I would have no time to run a business and no time to spend with my family. So, please don’t be offended if you email us and don’t get an answer in response.

We DO answer many questions posted in the comments in response to a post. We’ll also sometimes answer particularly unique questions in a blog post. And, of course, the content we create for this site is free. But if you have a pressing need for our expertise and want our personalized help in building your business, you can hire us for phone or in person consulting or training. Phone consulting is currently $200/hour (as of August, 2010), but we can help you save hours of looking for an answer online and trying to figure out things on your own.

If you’re anything like my wife, you’re probably thinking “Whoa, Nelly! $200 for the ‘privilege’ of speaking to one of the Mantys for an hour?” Let me explain how the process works. When you contact us to set up a phone consultation, you’ll send us 4-5 questions that can be answered in an hour (ranking them in order of importance, in case time runs out). We’ll then research the answers to your questions— we don’t charge you for that time. So, your “one hour” phone consultation may, in reality, take as many as four or five hours of our time.

Of course, if you have a business and are considering hiring us to design a website or for marketing services, we provide a one hour free consultation. However, that isn’t designed to be a time to answer all of your questions. It’s primarily a time where we can assess how we can best help you and which of our services are likely to benefit you the most. While you may get some useful hints and information out of it, if you want to “do it yourself” and just need direction, you’re much better off paying for a phone consult.

Anyway, we look forward to helping you succeed online and if you would like to see us build a step by step program on making a living online or any other type of program let us know in the comments below.

Do You Have the Online Money Making Mindset?

There is a certain mindset needed for making a living online. It can be the difference between becoming very successful and wasting your time and money for a while before eventually quitting. It’s not easy to make big money online and anyone who tells you differently is flat out lying to you! Therefore, you must truly know deep within yourself that you will never give up no matter what. You need a burning desire to becoming successful at all costs.

Too many people think that making money online is easy or that they are going to get rich just by signing up for some program or buying an ebook. I can’t really blame them most of the time because that’s what they are led to believe by shady marketers and flat out scammers. But the truth is actually the complete opposite… It’s very difficult to make a living online!

Sure, you might be able to earn a little money without a lot of effort. But if you are looking to actually build a full-time income on the internet then you better be ready to do a lot of learning, a lot of hard work, and spend a lot of time before you get there. Having some money to invest into your online business will be very helpful as well. If it were easy then everyone would do it and nobody would have any money problems. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t work that way. So, you can’t go into it with the attitude of getting rich quickly or easily. It’s not going to happen!

What it really comes down is your money making mindset. If you truly believe you will succeed, and you are more than willing to put in the time and effort needed, and get up from all failures, you will be able to make a living online. Know that you will have to work hard to get there but it can be done. Nothing can stop you if completely you believe in yourself and never give up!

Main Street Marketing Machines Review

Jill here. Obviously, George and I haven’t had time to review the entire Main Street Marketing Machines program yet because it’s HUGE! But we got an email that they’re closing the doors Friday at midnight (Pacific), so we wanted to update you on what we’ve looked at so far so that you can make a decision if you’re on the fence. Look, I like to procrastinate as much as the next person, but do not wait until the last minute if you really want to get in on this and don’t want to wait months and months until it opens again. You’ll kick yourself if you forget and don’t get signed up.

This is what we’ve discovered so far. No offense to Local Business Money Machine, which has been a complete blessing this past year and really helped us get off the ground and headed in the right direction, but this is a MUCH better program. Of course, it’s about three times as expensive, so that’s something you’ll need to take into consideration. But, especially if you’re a “newbie”, this program breaks everything down into very manageable chunks. And the videos are incredibly professional (what else would you expect from the guys at Traffic Geyser) and even entertaining.

In fact, this program is broken down so well, that I am going to try my hand at some of the technical parts of it. I’m going to create a landing page myself and see whether someone who’s technically capable but completely unpracticed can do this. I won’t get it done in time to tell you the results before the program closes, but the fact that I’m willing to even TRY is a testimony to this program. Keep in mind that when I graduated from high school, I asked that my parents give me a typewriter instead of a computer, and I usually tell people that “I eat breakfast and talk to people, and George does all the work.” Perhaps I’ll no longer be able to say that

What else have we discovered? We would have paid as much for the level of Traffic Geyser membership included as we paid for the entire Main Street Marketing program. So, even if you’re thinking about trying out Traffic Geyser, go this route instead. You’ll get not only the great video marketing training that Traffic Geyser includes but marketing materials for your new business; over 40 hours of video training by everyone from Mainstreet Marketing success stories (they really do tell you EXACTLY what they did to be successful, even role playing some of the client approach strategies they use) to Bill Glazer; planners; free report templates; fill in the blanks autoresponders… I really could go on and on.

Is this program for everyone? I would still say “no”. There are plenty of people who won’t implement the steps and won’t follow the program. If this is you (you know who you are), don’t buy this program. If you don’t like interacting with people, and you’re not willing to take on a partner who can handle the client interactions, this probably isn’t the program for you. I think, however, that it is appropriate for people with varying skill levels when it comes to internet marketing. You do need some degree of comfort with technology, in general. But if you’ve ever blogged at all or are comfortable with Facebook, then you should do fine.

Like Local Business Money machine, you’ll need some time to set aside for this. The Traffic Geyser trainings are pretty quick and easy. There are eight lessons in the Express Lane training. The longest lesson I’ve seen so far is about 15 minutes. Then there are assignments that go along with those, which I think will take a minimum of 30 minutes to a couple of hours. So, you’ll need around 15-20 hours, probably to get through those trainings. And then, of course, you’ll need to go through the Main Street Marketing steps. Plus, making the pages and acquiring your clients. In other words, don’t think you’re going to buy this and five minutes later start depositing checks in your bank account. But, really, if any of you HAVE discovered a system that works that way, you should contact George about writing for this blog because clearly you’ve found a way to make money grown on trees and a quick way to harvest it.

I do think that you should be able to get through enough training and start implementing the program and figure out whether it works within your 30 day trial. That is, of course, if you don’t wait until day 25 to get started. And that’s my recommendation to you. If you’re interested, buy the program. Work the program for the next 30 days (no excuses— just get busy). If you realize it’s not for you, there’s no way you’re going to do it, you haven’t even opened the files— for crying out loud, return the program! It’s risk free if you’ll just take that step if you aren’t using it.

So, in summary, are we abandoning Local Business Money Machine and switching to Main Street Marketing? No. We’ll do a hybrid of the two for our business model because we’re already making money with Local Business Money Machine. There is a lot of overlap in these two programs, as they both target Local Search marketing opportunities. However, there are some areas that are mentioned in less detail in Local Business Money Machine that we haven’t really pursued as much as we could have (including doing more direct marketing and, of course, video marketing). These are the areas where we’ll be using Main Street Marketing Machines. Do I think you can use Main Street Marketing Machines without Local Business Money Machine? Absolutely!! It’s a completely different model and will stand on it’s own with no problem.

So, take some time to think about it. Write down the pros and cons, where you want to be a year from now and whether your current path is going to get you there. Then, if you think this is a good match for you, buy it! I think you’ll be glad you did.

P.S. Oh, and if you have any questions about the program that you’d like answered before tomorrow, let us know. We’ll be checking comments for the next couple of days pretty regularly so that we can answer anything that will help you make a decision.

PPS. To get our Main Street Marketing Machines Bonus, please remember to use our affiliate link by clicking here. Then send an email to info @ mantywebdesigns .com with a copy of your receipt. Once we have verified that you purchased through our link we will contact you to set up a one hour phone consultation with us to answer any of your questions after you have used the program for at least 30 days. Also, we will follow that call up with an email to check on your progress.

Please, let us know if you have any questions about our Main Street Marketing Machines review.

Yet Another Chance To Join The Local Business Money Machine

In case you missed it the last several times that it opened up to new members, it looks like there will be another chance for you to sign up for the Local Business Money Machine.

If you want to see our review of the program check it out by clicking here. And, yes our local Internet marketing business is still doing very well.

We will still offer you the same bonus if you sign up through our affiliate link.

If you buy the program, we’d like to help you use the program successfully. We’re offering you a Quick Start Blueprint— the parts of the program that we felt were the most critical for getting started, including our most successful networking tips and the tools (both paid and free) that we’ve found the most useful. And when you finish those trainings and have had a chance to get your feet wet, we’ll give you a 60 minute phone consultation at the end of your first month where you can ask any questions you may have.

To get our bonus for the Local Business Money Machine follow the steps below:

1. Click here on our affiliate link and sign up for their email list. Then when it opens sign up for the program (before it closes).
2. Email your receipt for the program to us at info @ mantywebdesigns.com with the subject line “Make Money Online Blueprint”.
3. After we have verified your sign up using our affiliate link then we will contact you about the blueprint.
4. After you have been in the program for 30 days and are ready to ask us questions, set up your free phone consultation.

How I Went From Disgruntled Chef To Freelance Superstar

I do admit the title of this post is a little on the ‘heavy side’ but I’ve chosen it for a good reason. Today (4 November 2009) is the day I’m launching my first ever paid-for info product Freelance Superstar.

Freelance Superstar is a step by step guide for newbie freelance writers or those existing entrepreneurs who currently struggle in their business. It is a labor of love and seasoned with plenty of hardship as everything I had to learn in order to run my own successful business is contained within. Basically, the Freelance Superstar guide will save you weeks of frustrations – guaranteed.

My early days:

When I first got started as a wannabe writer I had one thing going for me – passion to reach success once and for all or face another 20+ years in a job I absolutely hated. This drive was pushing me to work long hours and sacrifice many weekends in order to succeed.

In hindsight I have to say that every single tear I shed, every dollar I spent and every ‘not so lady-like word’ I ushered was worth it.

I got my first long term client while answering an online ad for a paid blogger job. By the time I saw it it had early been published 6 weeks and I figured ‘oh well, what have I got to lose by applying for it.’ So I did. Interestingly enough I got the job!

And guess who my first client was – yep, it is no other than my current partner in crime for the Freelance Superstar product – infamous online ‘guru’ Gobala Krishnan. Gobala employed me as a staff blogger on one of his sites which later lead to being the editor in charge on a couple of his blogs. Plus it also brought me several big name marketers as new clients.

The rest as they say is history – I wish.

My seven months journey to freedom and success:

From that very first job I landed with Gobala it took seven months for me to earn a full time income. Those seven months were perhaps the toughest ever for me because I spend hours online in order to brand my name and my business with my blog and social media. It was extremely time consuming but also very rewarding because by the time I quit my offline job for good (January 2008) I never had to look back.

In fact, from January 08 until March/April 09 I was fully booked at all times without having to seek one single client. You could call this the honeymoon period I guess. Life was perfect.
The suddenly I realized…

... that I had priced myself out of the market. When things started to slow down in those early months of 2009 I didn’t know yet that the GFC had already crowded my style. Only when I got an increased ‘lack of replies’ to my quotes I figured something was seriously wrong. My business was still rolling nicely but the cracks were slowly starting to show due to having bigger gaps in my schedule.

It was time to take action once again:

The first thing I did was to take down my rates and customize them for every single client. This has worked a treat for me ever since. Only later did I make the connection between this sudden loss of bookings and the global recession.

Luckily for me I did act on it immediately and only had to experience two slowish months.

I also realized that unless I got into the info product market I could keep writing forever and never achieve true time freedom. So I wrote Freelance Superstar to help newbies find their feet in the industry.

The supercharge formula:

A lot has happened since and while I normally never talk about my income I can proudly say that I had my first $700 day late last month. Naturally not all days are this crazy but my income has doubled from September to October this year already and things are looking good for the future.

My personal supercharge formula can be accredited to the power of outsourcing. Outsourcing is the way to go in this industry and I will talk about this in detail if you head over to my new site Writing Pod. That site is dedicated to take a freelance writing business to the next level and only my list subscribers will find out how I did this because it isn’t for the faint-hearted or the person scrambling for their last dollar.

What it takes to reach success in business:

If you want to be widely successful in your own business you need to be dedicated to your success. Expect late nights, weekend work, last minute orders from clients and a whole heap of time consuming tasks.

You also need to be passionate about what you do, otherwise it will never work out for you. The magic word is to take massive action day in and day out. Even after you reach acceptable success levels you have to keep on pushing. I’m happy to say though that it beats the alternatives for me every single day.

I LOVE my business, I LOVE my clients and best of all, I really LOVE my life. Do you have it within you to be the next Freelance Superstar?

In success
Monika Mundell

Another Business Oppportunity To Make Money Online With Local Businesses

As you know, Jill and I started a houston web marketing and design company that helps local businesses make money online. Well, Jeff Walker just released a cool video about a new training course he is going to launch that teaches local businesses how to make a ton of money with product launches. This sounds like a great business opportunity.

I am personally very interested in the course because I think it would be a great service to offer to local businesses. It fits really well with our current business. If the price is reasonable then it will be hard for us not to invest in the training.

Anyway, Jeff is giving away some good free information in his videos about the course, so I recommend you click here to check it out.

Note: All the links in this post are affiliate links and I will make money if you buy something after clicking on them.

How To Make A Living Online By Helping Local Business Owners

Recently, my wife Jill and I started a new business that helps local businesses make more money by properly marketing their websites on the Internet. The new business has gone extremely well. We have picked up 4 clients in the first 2 weeks and we have several other very strong leads. It has been VERY COOL!

I am not sure if we could have done it this quickly without the help of a training system that we discovered when it was first released. It is called the Local Business Money Machine and the system is absolutely amazing. The training reveals how to get ideal clients quickly, how to make winning proposals to those clients, how to run your business, and how to market your client’s local businesses on the web.

Going into the training I already knew a TON about online marketing, however there are some cool things I have learned about marketing local businesses on the Internet that I wasn’t aware of prior to the training. For me the really valuable part of the training has been the “getting clients” part of the program. The system for getting clients is well suited for my wife Jill, so she has been taking care of most of the client acquisition (sales) process, whereas I have been doing the online marketing and project management part of the business. It works great for us.

Who is this program for?

I think this program is best suited for those who have been doing some online marketing and/or have some experience getting clients but have not found that perfect system for running a successful business. People who are complete newbies (less than 6 months trying to make money online) are going to find the learning curve a bit more difficult and will need to take things slower than we are. You can still use this system if you are complete newbie, but it is going to take a lot more time than those who have some general Internet marketing knowledge. The good thing is that you can do the training at your own pace and the training is very well organized.

To see a free webinar that teaches the basics of what we are doing click here.

Today the program goes live again. I am not sure how many people they are taking this time. Last time it was 100. You can see the page to sign up for the program by clicking here.

If you do join the program using the link above, then let me know and I will keep in touch with you to help you out with the program and to potentially partner with you on some projects.

Sneak Peak At Our Houston Based Web Marketing Company

Life has a funny way of forcing your hand. I’ve been playing around at this online thing for several years now and have made some decent money at it, but never really committed to it. I’ve talked about doing it full time. I’ve dreamed about doing it full time. But I haven’t been DOING it full time. Then a month ago I was laid off from my job as a JAVA developer. I spent some time putting together a resume and talking to recruiters before realizing I didn’t really want another job working for someone else. I wanted to work for myself. Full time.

So, after a series of events unfolded (which could be the focus of a later post), my wife and I decided to take the plunge and start our own business. So, I am very pleased to introduce MantyWeb Designs (www.mantywebdesigns.com), a full service web promotion and web design company. We will be specializing in helping local businesses with underperforming websites turn their websites into a valuable part of their marketing plan. I’ll be focusing on helping people increase traffic and improving conversion rates. My wife will be concentrating on sales.

While we are based in Houston, we’re available to help people all over the U.S. So, if you’re in need of assistance, contact me. You can leave all well wishes in the comment section.

Make Money Money Online With No Investment – No Product – No Expertise?

A friend of my wife asked me the other day:

The question I have—and this probably won’t be in an organized form—is:

Do you have any tips, advice, suggestions, recommendations, etc. for someone in this scenario?

An at-home mom who did not have a professional job before having and staying home with her kids. The economy is tanking, and maybe her husband has been laid off or had his hours cut back a little or a lot. She really doesn’t want to dump her kids in daycare to go get a job because any job she could get would just about cover the daycare and other job-related expenses. She’d love to work from home, but doesn’t have any ‘expert’ knowledge about anything that she could turn into a marketable enterprise; she doesn’t have the know-how to teach people to make money, so making money by helping others try to make money isn’t an option. She makes no products, therefore has nothing tangible to sell. She doesn’t have the money to invest in the hundreds upon hundreds of ‘I will teach you how to make money’ programs out there.

Is there anything online that she could do, or in this case would dumping the kids in daycare and hoping for the best be pretty much the only hope?

I get questions similar to this all the time. Before I can answer this question in detail I would need to ask quite a few questions to give the most relevant answer that I can.

The first question I would ask is…

Do you have absolutely no money to invest or do you have say 10 dollars, 20 dollars, 100 dollars, 200 dollars, 500 dollars, 1000 dollars, or more?

The answer to this question will greatly influence what options you have.

The more money you have to the invest, the easier it will be to make money online.

If you have enough money to pay for a domain name (about 10 dollars/yr), then I suggest getting your own domain name. If you have enough to invest in web hosting (about 50-100 dollars/yr), then I suggest you get a web host, if you have enough to get an autoresponder (about $200/yr with Aweber) then I suggest you get an autoresponder or sign up for SiteSell. If you have more money then you can do other things like spend money on an Internet marketing education.

If you have absolutely no money to spend then it’s going to be harder, but still possible.

I have no product to sell, how do I make money online?

Well, there are a ton of ways you can make money online when you don’t have a product including creating a new product. Also, you can do affiliate marketing, get advertisers for your site, sell services, etc. But before we go into the details, let’s explore some of the other questions…

I have no expertise what I can do to make money online?

I seriously doubt that people who are smart enough to ask this question aren’t good enough at something to have some level of expertise in it. While you may not consider yourself an “expert” at anything you probably have more expertise in some things than other things. For instance, if you do the laundry without ruining your clothes you definitely have more of an expertise in washing clothes than I do.

Legendary direct marketer, Dan Kennedy, has a great quote that does a great job of answering this question. Dan says,

“In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king!”

You don’t have to be the best to be an “expert”, you just have to know a little bit more than the people you are teaching. In fact, you only need to know ONE thing about the topic you are teaching that your students don’t know in order to be an expert to your students. Do you know more math than a two year old? You can put up a site that teaches kids artithmetic. Do you know how to wash laundry (the right way), then you can teach me:)

So How Do You Make Money Online With No Money, And No Products To Sell?

For the sake of argument let’s assume that you are working with absolutely no money and no products.

There are still many ways to make money online in your spare time when you have no money to invest. Some of these ways don’t even require you to have a website. Let’s start by talking about the ways to make money online without a website.

How do I make money online when I have no website?

1. Online Tutoring / Coaching
If you have any expertise at all you can set up a tutoring or coaching service. Do you ever help your kids with their homework? If yes, then you can help tutor other kids online.

One easy way to do this is through LivePerson.com. There are many other places looking for tutors (like tutor.com) with expertise . Just do a search on your favorite Search Engine for those types of work at home opportunities. There are a lot of them.

2. Web Writing
If you can write decently (not necessarily like a professional) then you can get work as a freelance web writer. You don’t have to be perfect either. There are a lot of people who will hire you if the price is right. You can get jobs writing for blog posts, web articles, forum posts, comments, ebooks, etc. A good way to find people searching for writing jobs is to sign up on a site like elance.com or guru.com. Another way to find writing opportunities is to use your favorite Search Engine and search the Internet for things like “blog writing jobs”, etc.

If you can write you could also write for sites like Squidoo that will pay you for writing pages on their site. You have to learn how to set up the Squidoo pages, but once you figure that out, it’s pretty easy to create new Lenses. Every month that you make a certain amount of money Squidoo will send you money for a part of the money they made from advertisements on your Lens (Squidoo page). There are other sites that do this as well, like Hubpages.

In order to make decent money from Squidoo you are going to need to write a lot of popular Lenses and you are going to learn how to promote Squidoo Lenses and make the most you can from them. I haven’t reviewed any products on making money with Squidoo so I can’t recommend anything. If making money on Squidoo interests you then you can search for information on it. You can read my personal thoughts on how to make money with Squidoo by clicking here.

3. Selling Photos
If you have a digital camera and you can take half way decent photos then you can just take photos of everything you see and start selling them on a site like istockphoto.com. There are other things you can do with the photos, but those require a website of your own, which we will get to later.

4. Ebay
There are a lot of things you can sell on ebay or other auction sites. You don’t have to sell expensive/unique/insane items to make money on Ebay. You can sell simple items that people buy all the time.

You don’t even have to own anything to sell on ebay. You can simply find companies that are known as dropshippers and sell their stuff on ebay. Drop shipping is a technique where you sell products from one or more suppliers who take care of shipping the products directly to the customer. All you do is take the order and get the money from the customer, then you send the order details and and part of the money that you charge to the supplier. You make profit on the difference between the suppliers price (including shipping) and the price you charge the customer. This is essentially running a wholesale business without the inventory, although you will usually pay somewhere between true wholesale and retail prices for the goods.

When selling products on ebay you obviously need to buy them low and sell them high. One example of something people successfully sell on ebay for a profit is used books. Used books sell pretty well on ebay. What you can do is go to flea markets, garage sales, etc. to find good deals on books and sell them on ebay. To increase your profit margin, you can buy a software that turns your PDA or cellphone into a scanner that you can take with you to scan the books ISBN number and then find it’s price online (see http://www.asellertool.com/home.html) for an example of this type of service).

That way you only buy books at a price that you know are going to make you money.

4. Job Recruiting
Help your friends, family and others find new jobs. There are several sites that help you start a recruiting business of your own without any costs on your part. They pay you to find other people jobs. Essentially they enable you to run a job recruiting business from the comfort of your own home. A few examples of job recruiting sites that you can earn money from are ReferEarns, Bohire and WiseStepp.

5. Connect Business Suppliers With Buyers
Much like recruiting where you connect employers with employees, you can now connect business suppliers with businesses that need their supplies. Several companies that you can do this with are Salesconx, InnerSell and uRefer. This is actually a lot like affiliate marketing.

6. Other Freelancing services
People will pay you to do all kinds of things online. You can moderate forums, write articles (which I mentioned earlier), design websites, be a virtual assistant, etc. There are many ways to make money online even without having a website. Do a search on your favorite Search Engine to find other great freelancing opportunities online.

How Do I Make Money Online With A Website

Making money online with a website is what most people think of when they think of making money online. If you have no money to invest in web hosting you are going to need to find a free website host.

Here are a couple that I recommend you check out for starters:

blogger.com
Blogger is a free blogging site that allows you to create your own blog and unlike many free blogging services you can put ads on your site. Blogger integrates really easily with Adsense ads, because Google owns blogger.com and has made it very easy to make money from Adsense with blogger blogs.

Google Aps – Google Sites
Google Sites lets you create websites that you can add advertising on etc. It is an easy to use system that can give you an online presence for your website.

Weebly
Weebly is a very easy to use free website creator. They also have built-in support for adding Adsense on your Weebly sites. It’s another good option for those who can’t afford to pay for web hosting.

There are other options for free web hosting as well. Check around, just make sure that they can be used for commercial purposes (many of them can’t).

Once you have a website there are a number of ways you can make money from it. Most of these require you to be a decent writer (not great, but decent).

If you can’t write then skip to number 3.

1. Content Site
There are many ways to make money with a content site. You can put affiliate ads on content sites, you can put up ads from Adsense (or similar services like Kontera, Chitika, etc.), you can make money selling advertising on your site, you can market products as an affiliate, and you can even make money on content sites by having private content that only subscribers can read.

If you are trying to make money with a content site, I highly recommend you first read my article on choosing the right niche, then read the free ebook called “The Affiliate Masters Course”. You can use the same techniques outlined in the ebook on your freely hosted site. I use similar techniques to what is outlined in the ebook, the only difference is that I use multiple methods of keyword research (including my favorite keyword tool for Adsense sites Keyword Country).

2. Blogging
Blogging is really just a sub-type of a content site. What you need to do is:

1. Set up a blog on blogger.com.
2. Get links to the blog.
3. Put up advertising.

Probably the easiest way to make money with a blog is to set up a blog that has the sole purpose of reviewing other websites. There are a lot of websites (payperpost.com, reviewme.com, etc.) that will help match you up with people willing to pay you to review their website or product. Some people make pretty decent money this way.

3. Splogging
I hate to mention it, but it is a way you can make money online without any money, any expertise and any products. What you would do is get free content from article directories and repost the articles on your blog. Another way you might get your content is by scraping other people’s websites. There are quite a few ebooks about how to make money splogging, and I would prefer not to spend time on all of these techniques. Just search for things like “make money splogging” “blog and ping” “make money with scraper sites” and you will find plenty of resource to help you out with this.

4. Photo Site
You can set up a site that displays your photos and let people use the photos for free as long as they link to your site. You make money by putting up advertising, Adsense ads, and/or affiliate links on the site.

5. Selling ebooks
You can set up a site to sell ebooks for free, but it’s going to mean you have to be able to write the ebook yourself. If you have a little bit of money to invest you can buy a Private Label Rights ebook to sell. Private label rights (PLR) ebooks are ebooks that you buy the rights to sell as your own. Most PLR ebooks have slightly different terms that spell out what you can and can’t do with the ebook. I prefer to buy Master Resale rights where I can do anything I want with the ebook, including being able to sell other people resale rights on the ebook. If you buy a PLR ebook or product to sell, be sure to know exactly what you can and can’t do with it. Another way easy way to create an ebook is to find an expert in something, interview them by asking commonly asked questions in their field of expertise. Then sell the interview as an ebook or audio or both. You might need to split the profits with the expert or work some other deal with the expert (allow the expert to promote their products or services in the interview, etc.).

Summary

There are actually quite a few other ways to make money online if you don’t have money, products, or expertise. Some of these ways (like selling people’s email addresses, spamming, etc.) are not good ideas in my opinion, so I didn’t cover them here. Some of them like taking paid surveys don’t usually provide enough income to make them worthwhile.

If you do have money to spend then you can spend it on various things to speed up the process. You can buy Private Label Right Products that you can then turn around and sell. You can pay for web hosting, writers, web designers, etc. The more money you have to invest the easier it is to start a successful business. However, as I have already shown it is possible to make money online starting with no money, it’s just NOT as easy.

For further research you might want to read my getting started article called “Ways To Make Money Online”.

Ways to Make Money Online

There are many ways to make money online. I like to group them into three main categories:

1. Making money selling your stuff


2. Making money selling other people’s stuff


3. Getting paid to do something

Let’s talk a little more about each of these categories…

Way #1 – Making money selling your stuff
When most people think of starting a business they think of selling their own stuff. Here are some of the ways that people sell their own stuff online:

1. Selling products
   When I started out online my intention was to create educational software and sell it online. Like myself, most people that start a business online start off with the idea of selling a product. Almost every product imaginable can be sold online. Arguably, the easiest to create are information products.


2. Selling Services/Freelancing
   One of the quickest ways to start making money online is by selling your services. You call sell all kinds of services online. Some of the more common online services being sold are web design, freelance writing, coaching/teaching, virtual assistants, copywriting, traffic generation, and software development.


3. Domaining
   Domaining is essentially the process of buying and selling domains. While I own quite a few domains, most of them were bought with the purpose of developing them at some point in time. Although, I would be willing to sell some of them. For example, when John Reese bought trafficjam.com I wish he had contacted me about buying one of my domains blogtrafficjam.com, since I am not sure I will develop the idea I had for it when I bought it several years ago.


4. Website Flipping
   Website flipping is a very tempting business model to me. Flipping websites is a lot like flipping houses. You buy a website with the sole purpose of making it better so that you can turn around sell it. Much like house flipping, you should buy a website with good potential that is not properly monetized and/or not properly designed and marketed. After “rehabbing” the website, you can sell it at a much higher price. This process sounds like fun to me, except that I would have a hard time parting with the site after fixing it. I am more likely to buy a website, fix it up, and keep it for the residual income.

There are other ways to make money selling your own stuff, but the ones listed above are the most common.

Way #2 – Making money selling other people’s stuff

1. Affiliate Marketing
   Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make money online, and I will be discussing it in much more detail in a future series (or a free mini-course). Essentially, affiliate marketing is revenue sharing between online advertisers/merchants and online publishers/salespeople, whereby affiliates(publisher/sales people) are paid based on performance measures, typically in the form of sales, clicks, registrations, or a combination of methods. In layman’s terms, it means you get a percentage of a sale when you sell someone else’s stuff or cause someone to take an action that might sell someone else’s stuff. It is currently my primary method of making money online.


2. Advertising Income
   Many websites make money by selling advertising space on their site. This is most commonly done on content sites. Advertising income can also be gained through other methods like selling ad space on website templates and selling ad space in newsletters.


3. Drop Shipping
   Drop shipping is a technique where you sell products from one or more suppliers who take care of shipping the products directly to the customer. All you do is take the order and get the money from the customer, then you send the order details and and part of the money that you charge to the supplier. You make profit on the difference between the suppliers price (including shipping) and the price you charge the customer. This is essentially running a wholesale business without the inventory, although you will usually pay somewhere between true wholesale and retail prices for the goods. I have seen a lot of people run drop shipping businesses on ebay.


4. Retail commerce
   Retail commerce is where you buy products at wholesale prices from wholesale distributors, carry an inventory and turn around and sell said products. Many of the ecommerce shops you see are doing this. This model is similar to drop shipping. The advantage of this method is that you can make a higher profit margin then with drop shipping, the disadvantage is that you store the inventory and you handle the details of shipping the products.

These are the most common methods for selling other people’s stuff online, although certainly not the only ones.

Way # 3 – Getting Paid To Do Something

1. Paid to sites (Paid to surf, Paid to take surveys, etc.)
   With “paid to” sites you can make a little extra money online every month. You can’t really use these sites to make a living online (at least not that I’m aware of), so I won’t be devoting more space to them here. If you’re interested in a little extra cash, and this method appeals to you, there is plenty of information available on the internet. And if you ARE making a living from these sites, and you’d be interested in writing a series on the topic, contact me.

As you are considering how YOU want to make big money online, this list should prove a good starting place . In my next post in the getting started series, I will be wrapping up with a list of resources to help you continue your quest to make money online.

My Review Of Rich Schefren’s The Uncertainty Syndrome

I just finished reading Rich Schefren’s latest free report, “The Uncertainty Syndrome“. This is my really, really, really quick review of it:

“The Uncertainty Syndrome” is an AWESOME read! In this report, Rich reveals some big constraints that keep you from making more money online. Constraint # 4 was a big problem for me and I found the exact solution to fix my problem on page 39 of “The Uncertainty Syndrome“. In fact, I am immediately going to implement the solution on page 39 of the report, because it will make a HUGE difference in my bottom line.

If you haven’t already read the report, I highly recommend you go download it now by clicking here!

Review Of Stomping The Search Engines 2.0 and The Net Effect

I just got back from a short hiatus and I can’t really say that I missed the Internet all the much. In fact, I had an AWESOME time and look forward to getting away from it all again.

Anyway, I am a bit late on this, but I wanted to quickly let you know my thoughts on “The Net Effect and Stomping the Search Engines 2”.

The Net Effect Review

The Net Effect is an Internet marketing magazine put out by the folks at StomperNet. The articles in the magazine were loaded with good information for beginners and those new to making money online. In my opinion, the best feature of the magazine is at the end. At the end of every magazine there is an action plan for implementing what you learn in the magazine. The action plan sets “the Net Effect” apart from many of the other internet marketing magazines/newsletters that I have subscribed to and I expect many people to copy this model in the future.

Overall, I recommend The Net Effect for newbies looking for solid information on Internet marketing.

The BONUS

When you sign up for the free trial version of the Net Effect, you can also get a copy of the Stomping The Search Engines 2. All you do is pay for the cost of shipping and handling. Since you will be getting both products for shipping and handling here are my quick thoughts on Stomping the Search Engines 2:

Review of Stomping The Search Engines 2.0

Stomping the Search Engines 2.0 has excellent information on how to increase your Search Engine traffic.

Stomping the Search Engines 2 is EXTREMELY different from the first version of Stomping the Search Engines. The biggest difference is that version 1 was all audio and version 2 is a video course. Additionally, it is NEW and therefore covers the most up to date Search Engine strategies for getting high rankings.

Just like The Net Effect, Stomping the Search Engines version 2 is a good product for beginners.

If you are an advanced level marketer your time will be better spent on continuing to build your business. However, I do recommend that beginners go check out this deal, because the price for the first edition of The Net Effect and Stomping The Search Engines 2.0 is definitely worth it.

Click here to check it out for yourself.

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