Make Money Online

You are here probably because:

• You want to find out how you can make money online in a legal and sustainable way.
  





• You already have an online business, but it is not working out well for you. You have heard that many people are having huge incomes online, and you want to do the same thing, but you don't know how.
  

No matter which group you are a member of, you are going to benefit from this article, although it is a long one. If you feel that you already know some parts, you may want to scan and skip them.

First of all, I would like to thank you for the privilege and the opportunity to share with you the little I know about Online Marketing. Let's get started.

In this section, we are going to dicuss what it really means to be an Internet Marketer, and what it involves. If you already know this, you can skip this part.

Online Marketing, or Internet Marketing, is a combination of certain skill set and mindset.

As far as the skill set is concerned, the following points are of great importance:

• Basic Knowledge of computers and the Internet

If you already know how to send and reply to emails, how to search on the Internet, and how to work with simple social media web sites like Facebook, you already know this. Even if you don't have a good understanding of them, they are simple learnable skills that anyone can learn.

• Article Marketing

Writing articles is a great way to promote your online business, and to let people know who you are, and what you do. What you are reading right now is actually an article. You write your articles and publish them to "Article Directories" where they are published after they have been read and approved by the mediators. Article Directories usually publish your articles for free, but there are paid services as well, where you get special services like immediate article publishing or the like. Article Directories publish your articles and make them searcheable by different search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo!, etc.

Publishing articles places you as an authority in your own industry, and makes it very easy for others to find you on the Internet.

Article Marketing is an integral part of every online business. Like the many marketing strategies you are going to be introduced to shortly, you are going to do it for a while when you start your business. However, you might decide later that you want to outsource it, and concentrate on other ones. Once you have got your business up and running, you can decide for yourself which one you are good at and like, and which one you want to outsource.

• Video Marketing

Video marketing is one the most powerful ways to promote your online business, and place yourself as an authority in your own industry. It is one of the many ways you can connect with your audience, educate them, and let them know who you, and what you do, and how you could help them.

It is very simple to include it as a part of your marketing strategy.

Have you ever talked to the members of your family, or to your friends about one of your experiences, or have you ever talked to your spouse about how your day was? I am sure you have. It is that simple, except in the beginning, you may be afraid of the camera, but over time, and as a result of the education that you obtain from your sponsor or the company that you join, it becomes easier and easier for you until you get to the point where the camera becomes your friend.

Certain aspects of this marketing strategy can be outsourced, but not the whole part, since the video is usually about promoting "you" more than anything else.

• Classifieds Marketing

You have always seen the classifieds section in the newspaper. Nowadays, the offline press is going through some changes, and most of the newspapers are being taken online. Along with the emergence of online newspapers, "Classified Directories" have grown a lot.

People advertise online, and there are many advantages to this method as compared to the offline one. The advertisements are easily searchable, and they could be made local, national, and international. Your business gets a lot of exposure through the online method, and it is free in most cases unless you want your ad to be shown on top of others' ads.

If you can sell your old bicycle to your friend, you already know a lot about this. When it comes to international business, there are some points you need to know so you get the best results.

You want to optimize your ads, and you could learn that from your sponsor, the company you join, or the many resources you could find online.

• Forum Marketing

Forums are places or web sites on the Internet, where people can register themselves as members, and take part in the conversations specific to the forum that are of interest to them.

For example, Microsoft, as a part of their web site and their services to their customers, have a forum, where members can ask questions about the problems they have with products or services Microsoft offers. Someone has bought an operating system, and they cannot work with a specific part of it. They can post their questions on the forum, and the members that have already had that problem, and know the solution, post their answers.

Likewise, Internet Marketing has its own relevant forums, and members help each other with the different topics specific to their businesses.

Through forums marketers place themselves as authorities in their own fields of expertise, and build rapport with their potential customers. Your potential customers could be turned into an actual customer over time once they really trust you, and know who they are dealing with.

If you want to make money online, forum marketing must be a part of your marketing strategy. It could also be outsourced once your business has grown enough, so you can focus on a specific aspect of your business personally.

• Social Media Marketing

Social media is one of the most important parts, if not the most important part, of any online marketing business.

They are powerful tools that enable you as an online marketer to let people know who you are as a person, and build relationships with people. They are great places to show people what you do on the Internet on a day-to-day basis, and what you personal life looks like depending on how much you choose to share.

Some of the social media web sites that are commonly used by Internet Marketers are Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Squidoo. There are many more, but these are the most important ones.

There are many ways to manage your social media accounts. They need to be maintained every day. Many online marketers today, use some automation tools since it can be quite overwhelming when your business grows in size and volume over time, and with it, so does the number of your online contacts. Some poeple, however, consider it unethical to use automation tools to manage social media.

As an online marketer who wants to make money online, social media is your virtual store on the Internet. Many people spam theirs with sales pitches, and business offers. People turn off when you pitch them on your business opportunity even if you have the best in the world. If you do your job right, you do not have to pitch anybody on anything. People will ask you voluntarily about your business opportunity, and will want to join.

• Blogging

Blogs or weblogs are personal web sites where people write on different subjects. Some blogs are personal, some business-related, and some maintained by companies.

Blogging is an essential part of online marketing. Some of the advantages of blogs are as follows:

1. Blogs are easy to update. They usually have a simple graphical user interface, which is the software the blog user works with, through which the user updates the content every day. Web sites, on the other hand, need the user to have some knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. to update the web site content.





2. You can easily rank for your name, or your blog itself, in the search engine results, much more easier than you can for web sites.





3. Blogs are great tools for building relationships, and they come in handy as compared to web sites.

Blogging must be an integral part of your online business if you want to make money online.

• SEO Marketing

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. As an Internet marketer or entrepreneur, you want to reach out to as many people as you can. How would you do that?

Normally, whatever tools you use in your promotional campaigns, you can reach out to a specific number of people every day as a result of your own direct efforts. You want to be easily found by those who search for what you present as a business opportunity, or a solution to one of their problems on the Internet.

Through SEO Marketing, you would learn over time how to rank for your name, web log, company name, web site, or anything related to you on the Internet. You could learn this skill from the company you work with, if they have a good education paltform, or from the many different sources on the Internet. But the problem with the sources on the Internet is that, since you do not know much about the subject, at least when you start out, you could easily pay a lot of money for any course that would not serve your real needs and waste your time. Internet is full of courses, CD's, DVD's, etc. that claim to make you a millionaire over night. There may be nothing wrong with their products or services, but the responsibility lies within you to choose the right one for yourself.

This Marketing strategy must be on the top of your agenda if you are really serious about making money online. You also could outsource it depending on your own circumstances.

• People Strategy

Probably the most important part of every business is how you deal with your customers, how you talk to them, how they see you as a person, and how much you try to solve their problems, rather than pushing your business opportunity on them.

When you want to make money online, you either have to offer a service or sell a product that people ask for. The product could be yours, and part of what you sell in your brick and mortar business, or someone else's.

If you do not have a product of your own to promote, you will have to promote some other product primarily related to anonther company and get paid commissions on your sales based on your agreement with the company you work with.

Internet Marketing is usually done in two ways:

1. Some already have brick and mortar businesses, and want to promote their products or services online, so they get higher exposures in the market, and have more profits.





2. Some, on the other hand, promote some company's products or services and get paid commissions on their sales.

As far as the members of the socond group are concerned, they usually complain about how hard it is to sell online, or they believe that they are not good at selling.

When you have a close look at successful online marketers, or the leader in this industry, they really do not sell anything. They never pitch anyone on their business opportunities. Others simply approach them and want to buy from them. People want to buy from them because they believe buying what they preach leads them to having what leaders have. People actually want to have what leaders have, otherwise nobody ever likes to buy anything if it does not lead to solving some problems of theirs.

Any business you do, online or offline, you will be successful if you are a leader in that industry. Leadership is learnable by anyone like any other skill, and it would say that the most important skill that your company teaches you must be leadership.

Well, these are some of the activities that you would be doing on a day-to-day basis as an Internet Marketer if you want to make money online. Like I said before, any of them is a learnable skill, and anyone can learn them. It is very important that you choose the right company, so you can make sure you will add to your tool box as you go along. If you can sacrifice your long term success and brighter future for some get rich quick techniques that might work today, but definitely no longer tomorrow, you will acquire skills that no matter where you go, or whatever industry you want to work in, they come in handy and sometime quite impressing.

Online Marketing is an interesting journey where you need to learn and update yourself every single day, and there is no end to learning since the Internet is constantly changing. Also you should be proactive and anticipate change, so you are not surprised when the strategy you worked so hard to find to fascilitate that aspect of your business stops working the next morning you turn on your computer.

Now if you think that doing all or most of the above meets your values regarding your ideal occupation or career, keep reading.

You do realize that you cannot be good at what you do not love, and you cannot make much money off of what you are not good at.

Now that you have made sure this business really suites your interests and values, you can now choose the company you want to work with.

There are many companies that apparently offer the same concept, most of which claim to be the best one on earth. Despite the fact that it really does not matter much where you work, as much as it matters who you are as a person, but the choice of your company and as a result of which the people you will be working with, really helps you become the kind of person you want to be somewhere down the road, and have the kind of income you want to have. You may want to consider the following points regarding the choice of your company:

• Do not choose the companies that promise to make you rich quick without not much effort on your part, and in a short amount of time.

Choose the company that shows you the way how to create your own success rather than doing it for you through some kind of magic or unusual investment. Always keep in mind that there is no shortcut to success, and the only way is hard work. Once you have earned the kind of success that you want, nobody can take it away from you, since you have earned it.

• Choose the company that offers great online marketing education.

The education that your company offers is extremely important. You want to choose the company that both offers good education for marketing, be it online or offline, and also the online implication of these marketing concepts through the free and paid online tools that are at your disposal on the Internet.

Both the parts are equally important. Most people fail over and over again at online marketing for the simple fact that they are not good at marketing in the first place. When you do not know the underlying and fundamental concepts of marketing, you will not be successful whether you do it online or offline.

Some people are good at marekting, but do not know how to choose their words in defferent situations. You need to know when to talk, when not to talk, when to listen intently, and how to choose your words so you get what you want from different people. Even if you intend to give them something, you will not be able to do so, if you do not know how to make them understand that they will be benefited if they have what you have to offer. Such matters are all around us in our day-to-day lives every day. It is just that those who know how to behave in different situations accordingly, have better lives and better incomes.

Some though, are good at the marketing part, but do not know how to use their marketing skills on an online platform.

All the different parts combined will make a good online marketer, and you could get all that if the company that you join has that education platform in place.

• Choose the company that offers great community support.

The community you socialize with. or your peer group, is extremely important. You must have heard it said that your income equals the average income of the ten people you socialize with the most.

Ideally the online marketing community members get on online calls and webinars on a day-to-day basis, and let each other know about what they have been doing, what works, and what does not work.

Another advantage of a good community is that it gives you an entrepreneurial mindset, and so gives you the winning edge.

I could not emphasize more on the importance of your community since my mindset has changed a lot as a result of the community I have been socializing with during the past few months. I have become so positive, and look at things in a totally different way. I tend to see the positive side of every situation, and guess what, the positive side shows up most of the time.

Choose your community and the people you socialize with, with utmost care.

• Make sure that first you really understand what it is that you are going to promote as the product or service of the company, and then make sure that you really believe people could be benefited from the product or service that you promote.

Human beings do not really try for something that they do not believe in on a very deep level. If you really believe something is worthwhile, you give it your all. But if not so, you may hang on to it when it is not so hard to do so, but when it get a bit hard to save it, you give up, since you do not really believe it worth your while.

If you really believe that the product or service you represent could really benefit others, you give it your all. You will try your best to convince others that they would be benefited if they bought it. And when people realize that you really believe in what you say, and see you as a person with integrity, they will want to buy from you.

If you look at marketins or simply selling on a deeper level, you will realize that people do not really buy your product; they buy "you"

That is where the term "branding" comes into play. Branding simply means how you let others to see you. It means what images or memories combined are represented on people's minds when they hear your name, or any other title they know you by. They might know you by the title, "the bank teller", but then what follows after somebody says "the bank teller", really matters, how you have branded yourself in people's eyes and minds. So you want to brand yourself shortly as a leader, be it in your business, or your personal life, so your success is guaranteed.

Another important point to be noted is that you cannot advertise a product online or offline very successfully, that has already been all over the market for a while. You would need to make a lot of efforts and invest a lot of time. That simply does not make much sense. So you want to find your niche market, and concentrate on something with great marketing potential, that preferably has not been tapped into much before.

Today there are soaps, lotions, potions, pills, juices, vitamin pills, and many such products that have saturated the market. Moreover, when you decide to market such products, there is not much potential for earning commissions on them, since they are usually very inexpensive in the first place.

There are some products though that are never outdated. A product that helps people improve the quality of their live never loses its marketing potentiality. Educational programs, wealth building strategies, etc. are good examples of this category.

So you want ot choose a product that you really believe is worth your time to work on, and has not been advertised by many people before.

Think of it this way. What would you choose to promote online or offline, if you knew you would not be paid for it? Answer this question, and start your business.

• Choose a company or business model that pays you both commissions on your sales as well as residual income on your downline.

There are many companies and business models on the Internet with many being added to them every single day, each of which having their own rules and regulations. You need to comply with all their rules when you want to join their business opportunity. Today there is no security with almost any of the business opportunities on the Internet. Some though, have gained a good reputation over time.

To be on the safe side, you want to choose a company that pays you high value commissions on your sales, and a residual income on the sales made by your downline. Your downline are those people who sign up under you, or join your business opportunity. This way you can make sure that you will have your monthly earnings, and once you have built up your downline, you will not have to put in as much efforts to have a monthly income. Of course, there will be some people all the time that drop out, for many reasons, and the portion of your your residual income that depended on them, drains out.

So after a while, you will find yourself only making up for those who drop out, and replacing them with new applicants, and of course making a few sales a month.

To be successful online, you should keep yourself updated all the time, and act as an information center, so people want to come back to your web site or blog over and over again, learn from you, and lead you wherever you go.

• Choose a company that helps you grow as a person, and improve your leadership qualities.

You must have heard it said that wise people do not work for money; they work for learning.

If the community you work with helps you grow as a leader, you will be a leader no matter where you go, and people will want to follow you.

Maybe the most important factor to consider when choosing a business opportunity is to decide whether it is going to help you learn and grow or not. Otherwise, wherever you work, you are going to earn enough money to take care of your expenses. Money is definitely very important in our lives, but when are we going to work on the other aspects of our lives?

The point is that when you take care of certain aspects of your life, that in most cases are ignored by most of us, money will automatically flow in.

Would you rather be a person who has enough money, and is a leader, so people want to follow him, buy from him, learn from him, and socialize with him, or the person who just has the money, but none of the other qualities?

You do realize that money is actually a by-product of the good qualities a person has. More often than not, you cannot be rich without having those qualities first. There are however some cases where people are rich, but not wealthy. Being rich is far different from being wealthy. "Being rich" is only about having money. "Being wealthy" on the other hand, means that the person is "rich", and has the good qualities as well. And you do know what someone's life looks like when they have a lot of money, but are not wealthy. Don't you?

Okay, now you have decided that online marketing is the right occupation for you, have chosen the right company, and joined the company. How are things going for you? Are you making any sales? Are you happy with what you have?

Well, things are a little bit hard during the first few months, but once you adjust to your new working conditions, understand the whole system you are working with, and get the big picture, you will be okay.

But this is the most important and critical part of your journey, once you have made it through the first few months.

Usually only 3% of Internet Marketers succeed and thrive, and those are the ones who just hang in there until they attain their desired results.

You see, you need some time in the beginning to learn any new system you start working with, and understand it, be able to manage yourself in time, focus on what you need to do, and not be carried away by the many web sites and different software you come across along the way.

You also need to give people some time ot know you on the Internet, trust you, and start working with you.

So basically you need to work hard upfront and reap the rewards later on.

Most people get discouraged once they have done almost whatever they needed to do to succeed. Once they are almost there, they quit. Don't let this happen to you.

On the other hand, some really give their all, but still do not succeed, and keep going from one system to another, or one company to another, but they never make it.

The key to success here is to give your all, but under the supervision of a tested proven system. In most cases, knowing what not to do is much more important than knowing what to do. Your time, capital, and all the other resources are limited, and without a good, step-by-step business plan you are not going to get anywhere. When you have a tested proven system, one that has already worked well for many people like you, it is almost impossible to fail.

This article was a little bit long, but I wanted to publish a complete guide to online marketing, as I knew it, for those who have always thought of starting it, but never have, since they did not know what they would be getting into.

There are times in our lives that there is something within us all the time inspiring us to take action on something. Most of the time we do not listen to that vioce, and it fades away after a while. We really do not know what our lives would look like today if we had listened to the inner voice within us, talking to and directing us all the time.

On the other hand, sometimes our minds do not really get started on something until we proactively take action on them.

Always remind yourself that there is nothing in the world you cannot do if you set your mind to it.

I would like to thank you for taking the time and reading through this long article, and I hope it has added something to what you already knew. If so, I have achieved my objective.

Go throught the article again, if you feel you need to. If you have any doubts about anything that has been discussed here, you are more than welcome to contact me.

If you feel that this is the right business for the kind of person that you are, go ahead and take aciton now. The timing could never be any better than NOW. You are never going to figure it all out before you get involved and get your feet wet. Take the first step in faith NOW, and the rest of the way will be shown to you.

Never stop dreaming and believing in yourself! Thank you for your attention.