How to make money online by blogging
As a successful internet entrepreneur, I decided that it was time to put pen to paper and share with others the wealth of knowledge I have gained through my online business venture.
I was partly motivated to undertake this endeavor due to the number of online scams I have seen pop up in recent years. I know of friends and colleagues who have fallen victim to such scams in an attempt to duplicate my online success.
Many of these scams promise you instant wealth with little or no work. Others guarantee you a $5,000 per month passive income with their 30 day program or your money back. Or something to that effect.
Unfortunately, in the current economic environment and with the wave of unemployment still sweeping across the globe, many unsuspecting job seekers are being sucked into these scams and spending their hard earned dollars in the hope of instant business success.
Here are a couple of facts:
· It is possible to make money online to the extent that it can fund your living expenses and more.
· It is possible to become wealthy with your online venture, although it does depend on how you define wealth.
· It is possible to achieve your goals with hard work and a proven game plan. No need for fancy software and “trade secrets”.
· You do not need any specialist skills, an I.T. degree or exceptional business skills to develop a strong online business although you should be somewhat Net savvy.
I started my business venture in 2004 when I invested $12,000 in a network of some 50 blogs and websites. They were collectively generating about $1,000 per month and I was fairly satisfied with my investment. It paid itself off within the first year.
At the time I was not an online entrepreneur or some marketing guru with the ability to generate millions by selling tickets to a seminar. I was still working
my regular 9 to 5 job and I was comfortable in life. My internet venture was bringing in a handy $1,000 or so monthly, which paid for the little extras in life.
As any good businessman will tell you, to make money you have to learn how maximize the income potential of your current assets. My assets, which were essentially my network of blogs and websites, were bringing in a fair income but I was most definitely not maximizing its potential.
Like many other fledgling internet entrepreneurs, I fell prey to expensive software, online marketing schemes (or should I say scams) and countless ebooks that promised to turn my business into a virtual gold mine within a few days.
None worked! Through trial and error, I discovered the method to make money online. It is not an overnight undertaking and there is no instant wealth. But it is possible to make money, develop a successful business and create personal wealth with the guidelines that I have put together.
So what did I do that was so unique? I invested in myself.
I invested in learning all that I needed to know to make my venture a success. I invested in putting my financial future in my hands rather than entrusting it in a bank, stock broker or financial advisor.
I took the reins, and every dollar I spent thus far was an investment in myself. The business I have is just a tool to bring in the money but even if I lose it tomorrow, I know that I invested in myself to be able to start up all over again and keep earning.
Over time I have met many other internet entrepreneurs like myself. Some have been successful, others not. A handful have managed to build sustainable online ventures while many went bust after a few months of success.
The key is sustainability in whatever you undertake and not the rush for quick money which is ultimately greed. The other important part to remember at all times is that making money online is not significantly different from making money in the ‘real world’.
Today I no longer work for a salary. I earn a living through my online business. There are many benefits to working for a company and being a paid employee but at no time would I consider that as being career and financial freedom.
The money you earn should be proportional to the effort you put in to any activity. Salaries have that limitation. Furthermore, I know my business will sustain me for a long period.
Even if it is on a downhill slide, I now know how to take action to counteract the decline. It is usually a gradual decline so there is enough time to intervene.
It’s not like walking in to work one day and getting a retrenchment letter. My passive income may fluctuate at times, usually seasonally, but as far as I am concerned, it is relatively secure.
If you are ready to learn how to do this then I am willing to teach you. Remember that you don’t have to quit your day job just yet. You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars in startup capital. Just follow me step by step for a few hours every day and you will reap the rewards. - Clint Jensen
Connect with me on Twitter @passive2wealth
Getting Started
This ebook is essentially a business plan with a tried and tested business model requiring a few hundred to one to two thousand dollars in startup capital.
Some entrepreneurs have done it on much less while others required a greater capital investment. It all depends on how much work you are prepared to do yourself.
In the course of this ebook, I will take you step by step to beginning your own online business, tailored to your specific abilities. Just as in any business, money is not generated overnight.
If I could guarantee you a thousand dollars in your first 10 days of business, then I would be selling you a scam.
This is a sound business opportunity and I bear testament to its success. I have created my personal wealth through this system. One penny at a time but eventually all hard work reaps its rewards.
The first step to get your business started is to first understand your platform, your customer and your income generating opportunities. Once you grasp these concepts, only then should you begin to implement your business plan.
Understanding the Online Economy
The internet is an economy that extends beyond the traditional economy that we all know. While it is very much a virtual entity, the internet is nevertheless a marketplace that can put cold hard cash ou don't need a Bachelor's degree in Information Technology or a Master's in Business Administration to build your online empire.
The first step in implementing this business model is to change your perspective on online businesses.
More often than not, most of us see online businesses as a buy and sell business model similar to a conventional store. The only difference on the internet is that the store is digital, suspended in cyberspace and accessible 24 hours a day in most cases.
If you think that the traditional buy-sell model is the only way to earn a living off the internet, then you are mistaken. For a few minutes, throw out your preconceived ideas of the internet and online businesses.
The current data suggest that the number of internet users in 2014 has grown to a whopping 2.8 billion people, approximately 40% of the world’s population. Asia has the largest number of internet users with approximately 1.2 billion people, followed by Europe at 560 million and North American at around 300 million.
Every internet user is a potential customer whether it is a 9 year old kid in Asia, a 50 year old man in Europe or a 20 year old woman in North America.
Unlike conventional trading in a buy-sell model, internet customers do not have to part with money in order for the entrepreneur to earn from them. There are other ways of generating revenue solely on the numbers, not on their spending.
This may be difficult to get your mind around at first. You may be suspecting that something is awry by this concept. How else would one earn money if not by exchanging money between two willing parties? Well, many business models work like this!
The Digital Mall
Here is a rather novel way of looking at the internet and online business.
Imagine a mall with hundreds of stores comprising all types of goods and services imaginable. Now imagine that you rent a store in this mall and open your own coffee shop and the monthly rental for the premises is $2 per month.
Yes, two US dollars. The catch is that you cannot sell your goods in this store.
Your customers come in, read your newspapers and magazines, sip on some free coffee, interact with friends or just relax in your store watching the latest television shows on your big screen.
Now you may wonder how do you earn money if you are providing free coffee, free newspapers and magazines and free entertainment in store? Let’s not answer this right away!
What if you serve great coffee, stock the best magazines and popular newspapers and show the most popular TV shows all day?
Undoubtedly customers will be flocking in compared to the coffee shop down the passage that also offers the same products and services but of a poor quality. So once again, how do you earn money because you are spending money to entertain and refresh customers without any source of income?
Let us imagine that a large multinational corporation tells you that they will pay you $500 per month for every 1,000 customers that come into your store. All they want in return is to stick a few of their posters on your walls. Essentially they just want to ‘rent’ a small portion of your store wall.
And what if another company tells you that they will pay you 10 cents for every handbill that you give to your customers whether they read it or not.
Yes, we are talking about advertising revenue. Before you sigh and roll your eyes, the way you think of advertising has to change. Many large advertising agencies have now enabled even small online businesses to become a part of the action.
Let’s go back to the mall analogy. It is an exact representation of how you make money online. Let’s run through these steps with reference to your online business.
The internet is the mega mall.
The stores are the millions of websites, blogs, forums and social networks that exist on the internet.
Your website or blog is your coffee shop.
Your free coffee, magazines, newspapers and big screen TV are the articles, pictures and videos on your website. They should be unique, interesting and user friendly.
Your website/blog visitors are the customers who come in to sip your free coffee, read your newspapers and magazines and watch TV.
Affiliate advertisers are the companies that ‘rent’ a small space on your website and pay when a visitor views it or clicks on the ad.
To take this analogy a little further, let us look at the search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing being the mall management who can place your coffee shop at the busiest part of the mall. This will help bring you thousands of customers but the mall management insists that you will be located at the busiest section of the mall only if you offer good coffee and entertainment without trying to trick the customer.
But how can you be assured a piece of the online pie? Well, you don’t even need a piece, just a few small crumbs to make your venture a success.
Consider these facts for a minute. About 40% of the people in the world use the internet. That is almost 2.8 billion people. About 80% of these internet users access information through a search engine like Google, Yahoo or Bing (MSN).
Now imagine if you were at the top of the listings on Google? Think of the number of people that would be seeing your website at number 1 and clicking to access it.
More readers mean more coffee shop customers who come in to ‘drink your free coffee, read your newspapers and magazine and watch your big screen TV’.
It ultimately means more revenue.
Sales vs Advertising
In most traditional business models, income generation focuses on product sales or service delivery. It is difficult for the average consumer to appreciate the power and income potential of advertising.
But online advertising is as big a commodity as any product or service.
The business model that I am explaining here is based on advertising. Advertisers will pay you to put up their ads on your website. No need for product sales.
No need to deal with fraudulent credit card transactions, delays in courier deliveries or unsatisfied customers. More importantly, a sale requires a multiple step action on the part of the consumer and a transaction is not always completed.
The consumer sees a product, examines it, mulls over parting with their money, opens their wallet and dishes out the cash and then leaves with a product.
Online sales means apprehensive customers who are unsure about the quality of the product, concerned about entering their credit card details online and then hassling you over the delivery and product quality.
You may be able to get an online customer interested in your product. But can you be assured that he or she will place an order, part with their money
(especially during these cash strapped times) and patiently await for a product to be delivered to their door?
Fortunately this business model does not depend on those steps to put money in your pocket.
Before we delve further into the potential of online advertising, let us gain a complete understanding of the entire business model.
A Complete Yet Simple Business Plan
Now that you completely understand the internet economy and method by which you can generate an income, it is essential to fully comprehend how search engines work.
As I have mentioned previously, the internet is a virtual mega mall with millions of websites. So how do internet users find your website or blog? Well, a search engine is probably the most effective means of getting traffic (online readers) to your website.
Now we all know the 3 main search engines, Google, Yahoo and Bing. Google dominates the search engine market with over 60% of search engine users opting for Google. Bing and Yahoo are used by a small but significant amount of internet users with Bing (previously known as MSN Live) now overtaking Yahoo to become the second most popular search engine.
Internet users usually know what they are looking for online. They may be searching for information or media for entertainment purposes, education, social networking or for personal reasons.
Whatever the reason, there is no disputing the fact that search engines are probably the most effective way to find the information you seek online.
Of course, social media making headway but search engines still rule!
As a matter of interest, it is estimated that Google conducts some 200,000,000 searches per day for users across the globe. Yes, that is 200 million searches per day on a variety of topics. It is targeting this quality traffic that will be the crux of your customer base.
I refer to search engine users as quality traffic because they know what they are looking for, they have entered the relevant search terms (keywords) into Google and they clicked onto your website listing because it seemed the most relevant to their search criteria.
Obviously, as in any business, it is better to get quality customers. These are customers who are looking for the information that you are providing rather than the arbitrary browser who just stumbled upon your website and have no interest in your content.
Search engines deliver this quality, targeted customers allowing the right demographic to access the relevant information.
If you have ever used a search engine, you will know that when you type in a search query, Google lists hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of websites. Most search engine users will click on the first 3 websites presented on Google’s search engine listings (this is called a search engine results page or SERP).
The aim of your website or blog is to get listed within these top 3 results, a difficult but achievable task. You may not always be able to top search engine rankings but usually the first 30 websites still see sufficient traffic from a search engine.
So how do you get Google to select your website for its top rankings? Google is not just a static list of websites and blogs. Google actually ‘reads’ your content, analyzes your website or blog and makes an educated decision (based on its algorithm) on where or if to rank your search engine on its listing.
The most important part of this process is delivering quality content (articles, pictures or videos) to the internet user. Yes, Google is able to gauge the quality of your work.
The second step is to gain a good reputation in the ‘eyes’ of Google by delivering frequent content, making it attractive in Google’s ‘eyes’ (a process called search optimization or SEO) and associating yourself with other reputable websites and blogs.
As a measure of your website’s reputation, Google bestows a reputation value to websites called Page Rank (PR). Google wants to list reputable and quality websites that will play ‘nice’ on the internet rather than using tricks and illusions to fool internet users.
And yes, Google is able to assess this.
At this point, many of you may say that you have tried starting your own website or blog but it did not earn you any money. Nor did it remotely reveal the business potential that I am talking about.
Well, you are not alone. Many average internet users have started websites or blogs to share their opinions on interesting issues or on their hobbies and past
times. What they did not know was how to monetize on the potential gold mine that they were sitting on.
You were probably just as naïve on the business potential of your now defunct blog.
Janet’s Story
Let us look at an example, loosely based on a real life story.
Janet is a new mother and has learnt a wealth of information on pregnancy and childbirth from her doctor, as well as from reading extensively and through her own personal experience. Janet realizes that millions of pregnant women out there are confused about what is happening to their bodies and what they will experience during childbirth.
As a matter of personal interest, she starts a pregnancy and child birth blog and rents some hosting space. She starts her blog with the help of her web hosting company which costs her less than $2 per month. Every day, Janet dedicates a few hours, during baby’s nap time, to write an article on different aspects of pregnancy and child birth. Slowly her blog grows from an empty spot in cyberspace to an extensive resource of over a 150 articles.
Janet is quite pleased with herself. She has found a new past time and helped thousands of women who visit her blog daily to learn more about pregnancy and child birth. Times are tough and Janet has to return to work to supplement the income at home. She is heartbroken to have to put her baby in day care but this is the reality of life and a career. Of course, she needs to pay the bills.
What Janet does not realize is that she may not have had to go out every day in the working world, spend money on daily transport, child care and endure a difficult boss just to earn money. Her blog was literally a gold mine. After many frustrating months at work, Janet becomes another victim of the global recession and cutbacks. She loses her job and is quite despondent about the future.
She is back at home with her baby but an endless flurry of bills keep piling up. Janet decides that it is time to reassess her blog. Her 150 articles are bringing some 50,000 unique visitors a month. Some of her articles rank high on a
search engine, by chance. Others are almost invisible on the search engines. She has built a loyal following and some readers return frequently but everyday millions of women globally are falling pregnant and finding her blog through Google.
Janet decides to pay a search engine optimization (SEO) consultant a few hundred dollars to take a look at her site, advise her on how to get more traffic to her blog and possibly earn an income. The SEO consultant finds Janet’s articles informative and well written for the reader but not very search engine friendly. He advises Janet on how to preen her articles so that Google is more receptive towards it. Janet takes heed of his advice and now has more of her articles ranking high on Google’s listing.
The traffic to her blog steadily increases and within a month, she has doubled the unique visitors to her blog. Every new article seems to be performing well on Google’s listing and her traffic continues to increase. Now let us assume that Janet has some 100,000 unique visitors coming to her blog in a month. That is just a small fraction of the internet users out there.
But what if I tell you that she was earning a healthy $800 per month from just this one reputable blog. A small but steady $800 to cover some of those bills piling up on her kitchen counter.
Janet decides that she could also grab another sector of the online readership and starts another blog on child care. She hires a few freelance writers to upload content onto her website and within months she has another blog with a few hundred articles. Janet decides that she will also like to focus on children’s health and women’s health and starts two more blogs. Once again, she brings in SEO content writers and fills up her blogs with interesting articles.
She is earning a steady $1,000 per month from each of her 4 blogs.
So how did Janet achieve this remarkable feat and secure herself an income of over $4,000 per month. Well, she just used a bit of common sense, initiative and learnt to build a reputable network of blogs which were well received by Google. The income generating portion was the simplest part and she did not have to go from company to company in search of advertisers.
My Experience
Before we move on to other aspects of this business model, I would like to relay my own experience in terms of online earnings. As you have seen from Janet’s story, articles (content) are the key to getting traffic to your website.
And more traffic means more money. But before you decide to spend your summer vacation writing a hundred articles, stop!
Let me tell you a little about my experience with articles and writers. I hired a mediocre writer to create some 400 articles for my health website. I paid him $0.01 per word and thought that his work was fairly good and would make me money.
It eventually proved frustrating when I was getting just a few hundred visitors a day and not making much money from his work. I decided to get serious about my health website and hired professional medical content writers.
I paid them more than 10 times what I paid my original writer and I recruited an
SEO consultant on board to 'trim' their work and optimize it for rankings. The SEO consultant also liaised with the writers and taught them good techniques for writing SEO content without letting it affect the quality of their work.
My traffic exploded overnight and hundreds of thousands of visitors are accessing articles on my website every month. It is all about quality content, not just any content.
Just as you would not allow an amateur building contractor to build a home where you and your family will sleep in every night, similarly do not leave your business to an amateur writer or to guess work. A single well constructed and professionally written article is worth a thousand articles written by a novice in the field.
Trying to save a few hundred to thousand dollars by hiring an amateur writer or even attempting to undertake the work on your own will inevitably lead to disappointment. Most importantly you will waste both time and money in setting up your online business.
A little research, identifying the right people for the job, the setup time and capital and you can rest assured that you will develop a business that will generate money on a daily basis with little effort on your part.
If by now I have not peaked your curiosity or got you excited about this business opportunity, then maybe this is not for you. For those willing to learn, let’s move on to online advertising and how it works.
In order to implement the concept discussed thus far, let’s first get a firm understanding of terms and processes required to establish your online business venture.
Online Advertising Jargon
Advertising has always been a big business from the dawn of trade. From the medieval markets with traders shouting out their wares at bargain prices (‘fresh apples, 12 for a penny’) to TV commercials, companies are prepared to spend millions, if not billions, on advertising their wares. Online advertising is no different.
Companies see the opportunity to reach consumers by advertising on websites and blogs and they are prepared to pay you, the webmaster or blogger for displaying their adverts.
But the larger agencies have removed the need for individual webmasters and bloggers to communicate directly with large multinational corporations. Instead these agencies act as the middlemen in the industry.
It is important to understand online advertising terms and phrases as this is the core of your earnings. These terms are not related to you advertising your website or product. They are relevant to the income you earn when advertisers choose to display advertisements on your website or blog.
· CPC : Cost-Per-Click is the money you earn every time a reader clicks on an advertisement on your site.
· CPA : Cost-Per-Acquisition is the money you earn every time a reader from your website completes an action, either signs up for a program or purchases a product.
· CPM : Cost-Per-Mile is the money you earn from every 1,000 impressions (times an advert is viewed or appears) on your site.
In my experience, CPA is probably the most difficult method of earning money online. The laborious process of getting a user to sign up, purchase a product and complete other transactions on the advertiser’s site is often frustrating.
Transactions are not completed and invariably you lose your reader to the advertiser’s site which they eventually abandon. My greatest successes have been from CPC and CPM advertising and I will always recommend this type of advertising over other methods.
So how do you get started with online advertising? Before you get despondent about having to ask companies to advertise on your website, wait and read on. You do not have to do this groundwork.
No need to email or arrange meetings with large corporations to advertise on your website. No need to face rejection letters when a company is not interested in advertising on your website. The work has been done for you in what is called affiliate programs.
These are online agencies that go out and find interested companies that want to advertise on the internet. From small businesses to multinational corporations, an affiliate program does all the groundwork.
You simply have to apply for their program and when approved, they will handle all the advertising on your website. No need to hand over your website or blog to them. No need to learn complex programming or insert advertiser pictures on your site.
Simply copy a small piece of coding provided by your affiliate program (usually about 10 lines) and paste it onto your website, in your articles or on a side box.
That is it!
This small piece of code will give them external access to a portion of your website where the ad will be displayed. Your advertising is now fully automated.
Every time a reader comes to your website, the code automatically generates an advert with no other effort on your part.
It is ongoing - 365 days a year, whether you are asleep or on vacation, those few lines of coding will keep generating adverts on your website for your readers to see.
So let’s take a look at the process again.
• You start your own blog.
• You put good quality and unique articles on your blog.
• You apply to an affiliate program.
• The affiliate program gives you a small piece of code to put on your blog.
• Your blog now displays adverts each time somebody reads an article.
• Internet users find your blog on a search engine, like Google.
• The user visits your blog to read your interesting article and an advert appears on the side or within your article.
But how do you make money?
Well, this is where the advertising terms above come in. An affiliate program follows the instructions of the advertisers. Some advertisers will stipulate they will only pay on a CPC (Cost-Per-Click) basis. So if your reader clicks on their advert, then you get anywhere between 1 cent to a few dollars.
Alternatively, the advertiser may stipulate that they only pay on a CPM (Cost-Per-Mile) basis. This means that for every 1,000 times the advertisers banner displays on your website, they will pay you a flat rate. CPM can be a very profitable way to make money on your website if you have enough traffic (readers) per month.
The other method of CPA (Cost-Per-Acquisition) is when you are paid every time your reader signs up or buys the advertiser’s product or service but as I mentioned previously, I do not recommend this method until you have sufficient experience.
A Step-By-Step Guide
In the rest of this book, I am going to run you through this entire business model step by step. At the end of following my guidelines, you will have a successful business that will start earning money. At the start, it will be just a few dollars a day but eventually it can grow to thousands of dollars if you put in the hard work.
So let’s get started!
STEP 1 - Setup Your Website
Before you start this business, you will have to decide what channel (or niche) you want to focus upon. Choose a subject that you are either familiar with or one that you find interesting.
This is your first business so you as an entrepreneur should be familiar with the subject at hand even if you are not an expert. One of the biggest mistakes that many first time entrepreneurs make is that they get involved in industries which they do not fully understand.
If you have not worked in a specific industry, and do not have at least a few years experience in it then do not touch it!
You do not need a degree in a subject, but a working knowledge based on some industry experience is necessary. Maybe you will want to focus on health, pets, cash loans, education or celebrity gossip.
Make your decision carefully but bear in mind that this is a business venture so select a high paying subject. There aren’t many advertising options for uncommon past times like butterfly collecting so you will want to ensure that it is a sought after subject matter that you will focus upon.
To verify whether your subject of interest is also a high earning topic on the internet, use a keyword tool for further research. The main tool I would recommend for verifying the potential profitability of your subject matter is the Google Adwords Keyword Tool.
There are other keyword tools on the market so search for these via Google. Type in your subject keywords and scan the estimated CPC rates. This will give you an idea of the average amounts paid for clicks on these type of adverts. You are looking for a CPC of at least $0.40.
Now it is time to select a domain name. This is also referred to as your URL or website address. Always choose a domain name that is relevant to your subject matter. This helps with your content’s rankings on search engines.
Many newbies will select a domain name that seems fun and quirky. This can hurt your rankings plus delay your website from establishing itself. More importantly, what you find fun and quirky, may not be a shared sentiment by your visitors.
Here is a helpful tip when selecting your domain name – consider a domain that has expired or been dropped by its previous owner. This domain will already have been aged rather than being a fresh, new domain and search engines love older domains.
It is advisable to buy your domain and website hosting space from a single company to reduce the administrative work. Many website hosts will give you unlimited space plus a free domain for just a few dollars per month.
I strongly recommend Hostgator for all your domain registration and hosting needs
However you may wish to buy a domain from one company and website space from another. A domain should cost you about $15 per year. Website hosting space varies from $2 per month to $10 per month.
A word of caution though - always select a reputable website hosting company even if it will cost you a few extra dollars per month. This is why I stick by Hostgator as my preferred provider. They are the one of the biggest in the business.
Once you have purchased your domain and hosting space, you will get backdoor access into your part of the server (your website/blog hosting space).
Here you can administrate your hosting space, monitor your website stats and install useful free applications necessary for your online business. Your website
host may ask you if you want a Windows based or Linux based hosting platform. Choose Linux because it is more stable.
Once your server space and domain has been established, ask your website host for help on installing Wordpress. It is content management system (CMS) that makes it simple to upload, edit and publish content.
This is the simplest and one of the best platforms to manage your actual content and it is free. Alternatively you can opt for other content management systems like Joomla or Drupal, both of which are free.
Step 2 - Find the Right People
While many will say that step 1 is undoubtedly the most important, I have to disagree. Of course, it is crucial. Without a website you cannot get started in this business. But getting started is one thing, and being successful is another. If you want to be successful then you need to find the right people.
First and foremost are the people who will make, or break, your website – your content providers. Without content, and good content at that, you will not even have a website – just a domain name and some hosting space.
Your newly established website needs content (articles, videos or pictures) and a lot of it. Text articles are obviously the best source of content as the search engines can index it appropriately and internet users are usually looking for information rather than just looking at pictures or watching videos.
Hire qualified people for the job. Writers who are specialists in the subject matter of your website should be professionals in the industry, with a side line writing service, or fully fledged article writing companies specializing in a specific niche.
But a good writer is not sufficient. You need somebody who understand how the internet works, who can help you with search engine and social media visibility and who can constantly tweak your website to improve its performance.
There are many such SEO and social media freelancers available. A word of caution though – the person who refers to themselves as an expert is usually not.
Look for the professional in the field with a trusted track record and not a ‘cowboy’ who loves dropping technical jargon to confuse you.
You can find writers and SEO consultants at a number of freelancing websites. You can try Freelancer.com, Odesk and Elance. Alternatively, go to a related cotent writing or SEO forum and find the right people. For me personally, I find the writer to be the most important.
A good writer with SEO knowledge and expertise in the field can do more for your website than even the most proficient SEO professional. In fact, a well written piece of content will pretty much do the job on its own even without an SEO effort.
Be careful about selecting the first writer that comes along who is offering cheap rates. Evaluate your writers carefully. Here are some selection criteria that you should take into consideration when hiring a writer :
Must have 3 to 5 years experience on the subject matter.
Should have excellent SEO knowledge and skills.
Excellent English literary skills – vocabulary, grammar, sentence construction.
Must be a team player and able to work with other writers in your endeavor.
A passion for writing is a plus.
Verify your writer’s abilities. Ask to see sample works, request search engine ranking of articles they have already written and hire the writer on a trial basis to assess their abilities. Busy writers will often not be willing to entertain repeated inquiries but you can still say a lot just from their email communication.
Step 3 – Develop Content and Attract Traffic
Now that you have identified competent writers, you can begin to develop the content for your website. Before the process begins, evaluate other related websites that are popular on the search engines. Take a look at how they are structuring their articles and then liaise with your writers to plan your content.
Here are a few points to bear in mind.
You should publish new articles on your website or blog on a frequent basis. It is better to publish 1 article per day rather than 7 articles one time in the week.
Decide whether you would rather have fewer long articles or many short articles.
Identify niche areas where you can attract search engine traffic. Sometimes it better to write articles for smaller, less competitive keywords than target articles with a lot of search engine competition.
Set out a schedule and get your writers to deliver as per your guidelines.
Never copy content from another website or article directories. It may seem tempting to use pre-written and copyright free articles but Google sees this as duplicate content and will penalize your website.
Monitor your traffic for individual articles. Some articles will perform well, others won’t. Learn from this. Collectively they all contribute to the strength of your website.
Hire an SEO consultant to evaluate your website and provide useful tips and advice. It will cost you less than a $100 for an SEO assessment but it could make the difference between earning $10 per month or a $1,000 per month.
While search engines are the best source of traffic, word of mouth is also helpful. Social media is the way to go these days. You need to be on Twitter and Facebook if you want to accelerate the growth of your website. Tweet about new articles on your website or create a Facebook page to promote your website.
If you have valuable information to share, join a few forums related to your subject matter and offer helpful advice with links back to your website.
Most importantly, content is king and will determine whether your online venture succeeds or fails. It is better to focus on fresh, unique articles for your website instead of investing your capital on other tactics to bring in traffic.
If you have listened to my advice thus far, you should have at least 30 professional articles on your website and be a few hundred visitors per month if you work diligently over the next 30 days.
You are now ready to apply to affiliate programs!
Step 4 - Sign up with Affiliate Programs
There are four networks that are must to start earning an income online. I have tried many companies such as Yahoo, Adbrite and others but by far, these four companies are the most profitable.
Before you sign up, make sure that you have a website or blog that meets with their requirements. A site with at least 30 articles, a few hundred to thousand visitors and that you are not participating in any link exchange or purchased traffic scheme.
The programs I will discuss include :
Google Adsense – the top CPC program in the industry.
Glam Media – a leading CPM program only for premium sites with at least 10,000 impressions per month.
Vibrant – in-content links
Kontera – in-content links
Google Adsense
This is the best earning potential as Google’s Adsense (for website owners like yourself) and Adwords program (for advertisers to purchase advertising options) is the biggest in the industry.
Google’s Adsense program is a CPC program where you will get paid every time a reader clicks on an advert. A minority of the Adsense campaigns are also CPM but this is usually insignificant compared to the CPC income you will earn through Adsense.
Google Adsense serves contextual advertising meaning that their script will detect the theme and subject matter of your articles and display relevant adverts on your website.
This increases your earning potential because a reader who is visiting your pet website to read about dog breeding will see dog breeding adverts on the side bar or within the content.
A word of advice on Google Adsense at this point: if you apply for the Adsense program with a very weak website or blog (probably it has too little content), chances are that Google may reject your application.
Once rejected, you are not allowed to apply again in some instances, at least not with the same social security number. You could use the social security number of a friend or relative for subsequent applications but it is best to do this properly from the outset.
Google’s Adsense program is the best in the industry so do not affect your chances by applying in haste without doing the groundwork for your website or blog.
Once approved for the Google Adsense program, it is essential to read and understand the terms and conditions of the program to prevent losing your membership.
I would recommend that you also read up on how some Adsense publishers (those are webmasters and bloggers) lost their Adsense membership or received warnings from Google. You can find this information online. Just read, read and read so that you do not repeat the mistakes of others.
When you have everything in place as described above then you are one step closer to financial freedom. Just sit back, relax and check your accounts to see money coming in from all those ‘coffee shop’ customers.
As long as you are delivering fresh and quality ‘coffee’, you will be guaranteed of an income. Initially it will be small. Probably barely enough to buy you a soda, but with time it will increase provided that you keep doing what you have learned here.
Google Ad Placements
You may have noticed that this section, and the one preceding it on Google Adsense, did not appear on the contents page at the beginning of this book. This was done for a specific reason.
I only wanted those who had the patience and enthusiasm to read this book from the start to learn what has worked for me and will undoubtedly work for you when it comes to the Adsense program. The ‘secret’ is where you place the Google Ads on your website. It will make the difference in your earnings and can determine whether your business is a success or not.
Many people who saw the title, browsed through the contents or even read the first few chapters may not spot this section. They would have said ‘I know all this’ or ‘I have heard all of this before and it doesn’t work’. Well, it does work! I can bear testament to that!
As you will see from other website running Adsense ads, Google’s Adsense platform essentially scans your article and displays appropriate advertisements. This increases the chances of your reader finding what they are looking for and clicking on an advertisement. Since Adsense is a CPC program, every click means money in your pocket.
The Adsense program allows you to pick the advertisement size that you wish to use on your website. From long tower advertisements to wide banner ads, you have a number of choices for sizes that will best suit your website’s or blog’s appearance. Google allows you to display a maximum of three ad units on your website.
In my experience, the 336x280 (pixels) advertisement works the best. If space is limited, the 300x250 advertisement size is the second best option.
I would recommend that you insert the first advert just below your article title or after the first paragraph of the article for the best results. You could consider removing the blue border around the ad to blend it into the page. This has been reported to yield better results but it is advisable to test different formats in order to decide on the best attributes.
The second ‘hotspot’ on your website is the middle of your article as depicted in the next illustration. Your third and last ad unit can be inserted at your discretion. Try and test different areas on your website or blog. Some webmasters and bloggers claim that a tower advert on the side bar is effective while others place square block ads at the end of articles. The choice is yours.
Here is a point that I want to stress. Every article on every page of your website or blog is a source of passive income. You are offering the reader something interesting that they are looking for in your article and that is why they are visiting your website or blog.
At the same time, you need to maximize the income potential of each article and page. Ensure that you have sufficient income generating potential (ads) on each page.
But do not overdo it.
Readers who visit your webpage will quickly become frustrated with awkwardly placed adverts and may just close their browser window. Use your discretion and always ask yourself if your ad placement is hindering the reader or not. Common sense will dictate what is excessive and understanding the reader’s mind in this regard is very important.
Making It Work for YOURSELF
If you have carefully read through this book, you are now empowered to set up your own online business and start earning a passive income. At first it will require work on your part, mainly in terms of planning and implementation.
With time, once you find the right writers and consultants for content and SEO management respectively, you can literally sit back on some picturesque tropical beach and just watch the money roll in.
This business model is not unique. Hundreds of thousands of independent internet entrepreneurs, webmasters and individual bloggers are using this tried and tested method.
In fact, many online media companies, both small and large, derive a substantial portion of their income through premium advertising on their own network of blogs. News websites for example derive almost all their income through advertising revenue and rarely from subscriptions these days.
The internet is a vast expanse of cyberspace. With close to 3 billion users and an ever growing customer base, there is enough business to go around for everybody.
Of course, it is best to grab a piece of the online pie as early as possible. A minimal investment can guarantee a huge return in just a few short months and for the more ambitious entrepreneur, it could even set you up for a six figure annual income.
If at this point you are unsure about making this minimal investment, then that is understandable. In these tough economic times, most of us are cash strapped.
But how long can you depend on your 9 to 5 job to secure your future or that of your family? The word ‘job security’ is now redundant as small, medium and large enterprises shut their doors and lay off staff on a daily basis.
The best part of this business model is that it can secure you an effortless income in a short period of time for a small investment. Almost no other business model can offer such attractive pickings. And it is RISK FREE! Yes, risk free.
If at any time you feel that this business is not for you, you can sell your network of blogs or websites on SEDO or DIGITALPOINT to other enterprising entrepreneurs. If you did you groundwork, you should easily recover all of your capital, if not more.
For those ambitious individuals who can see beyond the rat race and recognize a good opportunity, I would recommend seeking the advice of a mentor. There are many successful online entrepreneurs that run mentoring programs through webinars and email newsletters. But you do not have to go this route – just reading up as much as possible will do the trick.
Whether you follow my path to success and financial freedom or whether you decide to go it alone, rest assured that this book has given you the basics and more on the subject.
There is no need to fork out a fortune on programs, software and other books. Do not be tempted to dish out hundreds of dollars on scams and get-rich-quick schemes. It takes work but eventually it will pay itself off a hundred, if not thousand, times over with very little effort on your part.
You have just invested in yourself. You know what to do and how to do it. Now make it a reality!
That is all I have to share.