Saturday, 16 October 2010

Simple Ways to Make Money Online

Simple Ways to Make Money Online

In a previous article I wrote about new members of the internet marketing community losing out because of their own lack of knowledge of how the internet actually works. The truth is, at least as far as I'm concerned, that the internet can be a very hard taskmaster where you must do the groundwork to achieve anything approaching financial independence. There are no 'magic bullets', but there are simple ways to make money online.

To the matter in hand, 'Free Internet Business'. No-one, in the know, in the internet marketing community, will deny that what follows is 100% fact. Your money will stay in your own pocket and not in the pocket of a guy with a $3,000,000 house and no conscience. So how is this possible? Read on.

If you have already started down the road to earning an income from the internet, you may already have your own website and hosting. If this is the case simply adjust the following information to suit your own circumstances. In addition it's worth bearing in mind that there is no reason why you shouldn't use the following information to raise the profile of your existing business.

If you are new to the 'game' keep your money in your pocket! The following is what you don't need (at this stage anyway)

·        No website costs
·        No hosting costs
·        No subscriptions to things you don't understand

Until you get used to the internet this is all that you really do need.

·        A computer, or a library nearby if it comes to it
·        An internet connection, or a library nearby if it comes to it
·        A free Paypal account, this is where your earnings will appear
·        A free Squidoo.com account. This is where you will make sales.
·        A willingness to l-e-a-r-n

Added October 17 2010

Squidoo will never try to sell you anything, and they will never ask you for money. What they do, to make it worth their while, is to place small ads on every lens (as the pages are called) and when someone buys through one of the small ads on your page they split the earnings with you!

I'm going to give you an example Squidoo page to visit later. When you visit that link you're going to realise a couple of things.

·        The page is simple, but effective and quite attractive.
·        You only saw the page because of this article
·        Bingo! Tie these two things together and suddenly you have a situation where you can start to sell and not spend a bean!

Let's look at Squidoo some more. What makes it so good?

·        It's 100% free
·        There are no hosting charges. In fact there are no charges whatsoever.
·        Squidoo can get your message on page one of Google free of charge (again) inside 24 hours if your message is compelling enough and there is not too much competition. We'll discuss this last point later.
·        It's made up of individual modules. Each of these modules contains options for both text and pictures.
·        You do not need any knowledge of programming languages.
·        It's got a built in Amazon facility
·        It's got Ebay built in
·        It's got more widgets than a widget factory
·        You can choose what you want and what you don't
·        They pay every month as long as you've reached your lower earnings limit. Currently this can be set as low as $1

There are people earning a very nice living using this free resource, but there are better reasons to join than this, as nice as it is to have the bit of extra cash. Because the site is free and so easy to use you can use it to practice what you will do later. You will become more confident about using the internet to your own advantage.

A brief word about the 'Bingo' moment mentioned above. Every webpage needs traffic! You will have to promote it and get as many backlinks to it as you can. This article is raising the profile, on the search engines, of my Squidoo page. My Squidoo page is, in turn, linked to two of my websites. The website will shortly mention this article. Do you see the virtuous circle? Do you see the cross linking? The spiders, small computer programs that check websites and articles like this, that Google uses see these links and this helps the importance of all three elements in the search engines. These are of course:

·        The article itself
·        The Squidoo page
·        The website

Once you've understood how to get this far, you are on your way. Financial independence may be still be in the distance and there is still a lot to learn, but you're on your way.

You've read this article now and should have realised that I want you to visit my Squidoo page. Once there you're going to find even more helpful information, and 'hands up', I'll make you a pitch too. If you learn nothing else, you've already found out how to connect a simple article like this, to a free webpage. I'd also suggest that you visit my brand new blog. You'll find this article there, and the next steps, all for free.

You can see my Squidoo page by clicking the link.

Simple ways to make money online

If you've found this blog after reading one of my articles on ezinearticles and other similar publications, don't despair! You may find a re-read but you will also find stuff that I hope you haven't seen before.

We may as well get down to it, because if you are to make a full time living on the internet we need to learn more than baby steps. In saying that, Linford Christie started out on little legs and baby steps.

I'm going to tell you a bit about my own experiences. Who I am is irrelevant. The internet is full of monsters that want to ensnare you. 'What big teeth you have Grandma'. Does this ring any bells? There are so many brand new (recycled) Guru ideas that just make me sick….

Don't assume that when you join the internet marketing community with the $500 in your account that the money is going to save your ass it won't. Get into pay per click too early and you're scr*wed. There is nothing wrong with PPC apart from the fact that it has no conscience. You screw up, the money is gone and life is a reality again, but $500 poorer. It's the sort of cr*p that no-one needs.
My advice? Don't spend the $500. If you're lucky enough to have $500 leave the money in your bank account, pay the bills, learn how to lay foundations and then make your choices. Getting it wrong is not an option!
If you're meeting me through my favourite 'dating' site then that is obviously Squidoo. If you met me there then the chances are that unless you got there by accident, you read one of my articles. I will come back to this very shortly. Let us get real here.

You can probably (I hope) tell that English is my native language. You can also probably tell that I am not a talented writer. I cannot write 'killer' sales pages, but I can tell the truth. It's a qualification that some of the so called Gurus appear to have forgotten.
In many respects this is an apprenticeship. Do you want a shortcut? I ain't gonna offer one! Get the grounding right first. If you do this you're in with a chance. You'll see through the sh*t and  avoid the pitfalls that will otherwise drain your bank account and make you lose faith in what can be an extremely rewarding career. I've left my own early efforts online, online. They are not there for any other reason than to remind me of my own early mistakes. I am not making these things public because I feel ashamed about them. I somehow feel that I should have known better. At that time, I didn't.
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I know that many of you don't want to hear this but I have to say this anyway. I've said it before, I know, but writing was not a natural thing for me. It still isn't.
My first incursion into writing was prompted by opening my first Squidoo site. On Squidoo four paragraphs is enough to break open your own webpage. Make more pages and BINGO, you've started writing!!

Articles are the food and drink of the internet. You need to understand the power of articles. Many people will tell you to outsource, elance etc. But why? Have a go! I did. It is not as difficult as you think!!!! We've not covered the choice of a product yet, but we will do shortly. In every way it is your choice, but regardless of that you are still the apprentice. Stay the apprentice, there's more to come…


If you're going to write an article you're going to need a subject to write about. Likewise if you're going to build a lens on Squidoo you're going to have to focus on a product or an idea.
Not all lenses and articles need to involve selling. There are 1000's of articles and lenses that cover a multitude of non sales based subjects. Even these kinds of lenses will pick up commissions from the small ads that Squidoo places on most lenses. You won't make a lot though. Let us instead look towards a sales based Lens and what we can do to promote it free of charge.

Researching your product or idea

This is where the shear power of the internet really comes into its own. If you are to sell a product you need to research it. After all, if you're going to publish a lens about it you need to sound as if you know what you're talking about! One of my own early efforts was on the subject of parasites in food. This happened before I knew about Squidoo. If I had known about it then I could have saved the costs involved in purchasing a domain name and associated hosting costs, and marketed my idea for free.

I knew very little about these parasites and certainly not enough to write anything effective about the subject. As I researched the subject I learned enough to build my website and I also wrote several articles. One of my favourite research tools, which is completely free, is Wikipedia. This resource contains vast amounts of data on a multitude of subjects which you can use, providing you use your own words. Be very careful of how you use information from any source. There are copyright implications that you need to be aware of and avoid.
I thought about using the online version of Encyclopaedia Brittanica but decided against it because they wanted me to pay for it!

Spend at least a day or so surfing the 'net and collect as much relevant information as you can. Pick out the basic facts and save it in an ordered manner.