The Online Money Making Guide

Disclaimer

Reasonable care has been taken to ensure that the information presented

in this book is accurate. However, the reader should understand that the

information provided does not constitute legal, medical or professional

advice of any kind.

No Liability: this product is supplied “as is” and without warranties. All

warranties, express or implied, are hereby disclaimed. Use of this

product constitutes acceptance of the “No Liability” policy. If you do

not agree with this policy, you are not permitted to use or distribute this

product.

We shall not be liable for any losses or damages whatsoever (including,

without limitation, consequential loss or damage) directly or indirectly

arising from the use of this product.

Is it REALLY Possible?

If this book represents your first foray into the world of making money

online you may be asking yourself the question “is it really possible to

earn money on the Internet?” The answer to this question is an

unmitigated 'yes'.

Millions of people all over the world earn part or all of their income

online. I'm not just talking about big companies by the way, but

individuals working from the comfort of their own homes using websites

they created to earn incredible sums of money every year, in and year

out. When faced with this fact you might then begin to think, “yeah but

those people are probably computer geniuses who have spent all their

lives behind a computer.” Actually, nothing could be further from the

truth.

Earning significant income using the Internet doesn't require any

specific skill or a long history of becoming familiar with computers or

the Internet itself. There is an incredible amount of information available

to you to help you get started with your own profitable online business

no matter how much or how little experience you may have.

With this book, we hope to familiarize you with some of the basic

information needed to get your Internet business up and running

including such topics as what kind of business to choose, how to design

a website, and even attracting visitors to the website once it's built. Make

sure to take your time and study each section carefully because

throughout the book we have provided you with detailed information

and website links that will give you all the resources necessary to get

started today. So what are we waiting for? Let's get started …

So You Want an Online Business

I want to kick off this section by drilling a point home in your head. The

topic of deciding what type of Internet business to own is immense. The

area of choices available to you can simply be overwhelming at times

and this fact alone causes many to never get past the starting line.

You'll never earn a dime if you don't take action so deciding on what

type of business you will own and what type of product you'll sell

should be something that you decide on rather quickly.

If you follow the information that we have outlined for you, then

building your initial business won't require a lot of startup capital so if in

fact you decide that the product you chose to sell is either unprofitable or

simply doesn't interest you then switching gears and taking a different

route won't represent a huge financial loss; having said that, we will

provide you with tips along the way to help greatly minimize the risk

associated with your initial decision.

One of the easiest ways to get up and running with Internet business is

through the sale of information products. Information products are

simply those that provide you with information about a particular subject

that you want to know more about.

Anyone who has an interest on any subject would welcome more

detailed information about their interest and providing this to them in an

attractive easy to consume product has been the basis of more than one

success story on the Internet. Let's take a look at some of the ways you

can find a product to sell on the Internet.

Affiliate products

Becoming an affiliate of someone else's product is incredibly easy and

can be incredibly profitable. You're simply acting as a salesperson for a

product that someone else created and you'll use your website to help

sell this product. The product creator pays you, the affiliate, a

commission for each sale you make, and in turn, you won't be in charge

of any of the overhead or service related to creating, delivering, or

servicing the product once you make the sale.

Many large and well-known companies have affiliate programs and will

pay you a percentage of the sales made from any visitor you send to

their site. In addition, many info marketers have created individual

products for sale on the Internet and will allow you to earn commissions

on the sales as well. These info products are incredibly popular on the

Internet and because of this and the potential profits that can be made

quite easily, they will be the focus of most of our discussion throughout

this book.

One of the easiest places online to find all of the affiliate programs you

may ever need is www.clickbank.com. Click bank offers you the ability

to sign up for free and become an affiliate of thousands of products.

Simply choose one of these products and build your website and

marketing efforts around it.

Click bank offers tutorials on how to get started and support can often be

obtained through the creators of the product as well. Once you sign up

for a program you will be allowed to use a myriad of graphics and

advertising materials to help you achieve your sales goals.

While earning a percentage of a sale through an affiliate program is

attractive, especially considering how quickly the programs can be set

up, earning 100% of the sale can be even more attractive. The only way

to do this is to create your own product.

Creating your own product

This statement may shock you, but I'll bet you yourself have inside your

mind information that would make for an incredibly valuable and

profitable info product. The fact is, all of your experiences, talents, and

skills if put down in the proper format, could very well represent a value

to someone else that doesn't have that knowledge or skill.

Simply make a list of any hobby or talent that you have that you could

teach to somebody else. If there is a big enough interest in a particular

subject matter that you have knowledge about then don't hesitate to

create a product. As far as the world of online goes, an expert is merely

someone who can provide specific information about a topic that

someone else wants to pay to learn.

Creating your product doesn't require any special skill either. A salable

product could be as simple as an e-book, such as the one you're reading

now, or a more detailed program that may include a series of videos,

audio lessons, or a combination of any of the three.

There are many places online you can use to outsource the work to be

created. If you can type or talk into a microphone then someone else can

take this recorded material and turn it into an information product you

could sell on your website. For more detailed information about this

particular subject, simply go to Google and type in how to create an

info product and a plethora of solutions will be available to you.

Now that you've got the goods, it's time to set up shop

Once you've decided on a particular product to sell, it's time to begin

building your storefront. In this case, of course, your storefront will be

your website. The first and one of the most important subjects we're

going to talk about in creating your website choosing a domain name.

Picking and buying your domain name

There is no rule that says the first step of creating your website should

be choosing your domain name but the name of your url will be used

throughout your marketing and on your website so it makes sense to go

ahead and take care of this one now. Just to clarify, your url is your

actual website address such as www.yourwebsite.com. In this case,

yourwebsite would be your domain name.

Choosing your domain name is important and the simpler and more

specific you make it to what your website is about, the better. If your

website is about learning how to play tennis better, then

www.learntoplaytennisbetter.com would make a pretty good website

address.

The shorter you can make it the better. Most really short domain names

are pretty much gone these days but if you can find one that fits, it might

make for a great choice. Here is a quick breakdown of some tips that can

help you choose a good domain name for your online business.

1. Keep it simple-use few words, but make them specific to your

topic

2. Incorporate keywords if possible-If you can include keywords

that people are searching for in your domain name, this will

help your site show up in the search engines when people are

searching on your topic

3. Choose your extension-in the website www.yourwebsite.com,

.com is your extension. There are others available for different

industries such as .edu for education and .biz for business, but

.com is the oldest and still most popular. If you can get a .com

for the domain you select, then grab it

When choosing to purchase your domain name one company has risen

above all others:

www.GoDaddy.com

There are certainly many places where you can purchase domain names

online but Go Daddy has made them their specialty and their familiarity

with the needs of their customers and providing a consistent level of

quality customer support has made them the true leader. They offer

domain names for less than $10 per year and much less than that if you

purchase them for several years at a time. Their full-time customer

service support team can take you through the entire process with ease.

Hosting

The best analogy I can give to the relationship between hosting and your

website is hosting is like a piece of land, and a website is like a home

that you put on it. Your website needs a place to live on the Internet and

that's exactly what hosting services provide. They help to ensure that

your website is online and visible to everyone on the Internet 24 hours a

day.

There are several things to look for when choosing a hosting service and

only one of those is price. Because of competition in the marketplace,

the price of hosting has gone down dramatically over the years while the

amount of services they provide has gone up. The key thing you want to

be concerned with is the quality and level of service you receive from

these hosting companies

It’s unfortunate to think about, but the fact is problems can and probably

will arise with your website at some point in time. It's comforting to

know that the hosting company you've secured will be there when you

need them. This should include a variety of ways to communicate with

them including of course e-mail and phone.

If the hosting company you work with only provides e-mail service, this

could lessen their effectiveness in times of trouble. In addition, make

sure to note their hours of service because unlike a bricks and mortar

store, your website will be available to customers 24 hours a day seven

days a week; you want your host to be available for you as well.

Your hosting account is where you will upload the graphics of your

website to then be sent to go live on the Internet. The process of doing

this is called FTP, or file transfer protocol. The process is incredibly

simple using the control panels that will be available to you on your

hosting account, and depending on the level of customer service that the

hosting company provides, they may be able walk you through this

process the first few times to make sure all goes well.

Below are just a few hosting companies that have provided markedly

good service over the years and are backed by an overwhelming amount

of positive feedback from past and existing customers. We have

provided a few basic specifics about each company, but make sure to

visit each site to investigate the terms and services of each company to

decide which one will be right for your online website project.

 http://www.hostgator.com/ -Host gator has a great reputation in the

industry and depending on the scope of your project, can host your

website for as little as $4.95 per month. In addition to the 1-800

number prominently displayed on their website, host gator

provides a variety of ways to communicate with them and operates

on a business model that features 24/7 customer service.

 http://www.thirdspherehosting.com/ -Third sphere hosting is a

somewhat new kid on the block and they're making a big splash

with the incredible variety of services that they are offering to

clients. While other hosting services provide you with some

options to help you build a website, third sphere actually features

this as one of the main benefits of signing with their company.

Again, the level of customer service and communication has been

mostly positive from folks who have dealt with this firm.

 http://www.cheapwebhosting-1.com -for those of you just starting

out and who are on an extremely tight budget, you may consider

cheaphosting-one.com because their beginner plan is priced at just

$12 per year. While their services are not as comprehensive as

those listed above, and they don't offer phone support at this time,

the company does stand behind the service of its products and can

represent a great choice for someone just starting out.

Because of the low prices associated with hosting companies today and

the general ease of use in working with them, many people take their

website hosting services for granted; this is a mistake. All of the amount

of work that goes into designing and building a website not to mention

driving traffic to it in order to sell a product you are featuring would be

completely a waste of time if no one can see it.

Developing a strong relationship with a reputable hosting company

should be your first step into your online marketing venture. If you latch

onto a good one early, you may have just started a relationship that will

last for years and wind up being very, very profitable for your business.

Building Your Website

So, we've purchased the land (hosting) and now it's time to build the

house (website).

Like all aspects of products and services that are available on the

Internet, there is almost an unlimited amount of directions you can go

with the creation of your website.

Gone are the days of simple static business card type websites that

featured a bit of info about your business and a phone number at the

bottom or a link to an e-mail. Nowadays, Internet customers are savvy

and it takes a good deal of marketing and sales initiative to encourage

them to make a purchase with you versus another online vendor.

There are several aspects that must go into creating a successful website

and they include the design and graphics of the website, the sales page

presented on it, the customer tracking or follow-up capabilities, and

finally the use of other types of technology on your website to encourage

sales and grab attention.

Elements of a successful website

 Website design/graphics-if you've spent any amount of time

at all searching on the Internet you've probably seen some

pretty flashy websites. Some of the blinking lights and

flashing designs that jump out at you almost make you think

you're visiting the strip on Vegas. All too often, people

assume that they must make their website as bold and

graphically intense as possible but this just isn't necessary.

Your website is designed to do one thing and one thing only:

convert visitors into buyers. There is no specific rule that

states that you must have a ridiculous amount of loud

graphics in which to do this and oftentimes a simple website

will work even better than one that is flashy. Having said

that, you don't want a website that contains nothing but

words either because your visitor will quickly become bored

and click away.

A good combination of attractive graphics that are specific to

your product as well as a decent amount of content designed

to help sell it is what is required. You'll certainly want to

have a logo of some sort and may choose to incorporate this

in a header, which is a graphical bar that will go across the

top of your website.

In addition, pictures of the product you are selling as well as

any other pictures that pertain to the product are often

helpful. Don't be too concerned with graphics at this point

because if you are a complete beginner there are plenty of

graphic and website creation services available that can

handle the process from start to finish for very reasonable

fees.

 Creating your sales page-when someone hits your website it

is your job to make sure that the message offered is

compelling enough to encourage them to purchase the

product. This is done through the use of the sales page.

Basically, the content, at least on the front page of your

website, will be a part of the makeup of the sales page. You'll

want to include all of the features and benefits concerning

your product as well as testimonials from satisfied customers.

Creating a sales page that really does an affective job of

converting website visitors to purchasers is somewhat of an

art form.

Many successful copywriters charge thousands of dollars to

create such sales letters but there are much cheaper

alternatives available for you. One way is simply to create the

sales letter yourself. If you take the time to include the

compelling reasons of why someone would be interested in

purchasing your product you can have great success doing

this on your own without spending any money at all.

If you choose to go it alone there are some great resources on

the web to help you out, just search for how to write a sales

letter on the Internet to get a hold of all of the free

information you need to help you on your journey to

completing your first sales letter. In addition, there are some

web and software applications that will help you with this

process. Here are a few links to some that can help you get

this job done:

o www.pushbuttonletters.com

o www.salescreatorscreator.com

o www.instantsalesletters.com

 Customer Tracking and follow up-once you get to the point

where people are actually visiting your website you want to

make sure that you capture some of their information because

if they don't buy the very first visit, you have no way to

follow up with them if they leave. The best way to do this is

through the use of an autoresponder. An autoresponder is

simply a type of software that will allow you to load

prewritten messages into it and send them out to your

potential prospects at regular intervals.

You can encourage the visitors to submit their name and e￾mail address in a small form located on your front page by

enticing them with free offers if they do so. The free offers

associated are the follow-up messages you will send using

the autoresponder that are in the form of tips and valuable

information pertaining to the subject of the product you're

selling. These follow-up messages won't be necessarily sales

messages, but they will allow you to stay on the mind of the

prospect and remind them that your product is available.

Offering any helpful tips and information pertaining to the

subject they're interested in is often valued by the prospects

and they may stay on your mailing list for some time and

eventually buy the product you are selling when they signed

up, or maybe choose to purchase something else you begin

selling at a later date. When speaking on the subject of

autoresponders, one name stands out as the reigning

champion: www.aweber.com

Simply put, Aweber results are second to none and the

combination of quality customer service as well as the type

of services they offer make them an incredibly valuable

choice for anyone looking to establish a profitable online

presence. Remember, your autoresponder basically acts like

an employee for your company and will work tirelessly to

remind everyone of your presence in the types of offers you

have available.

If you rely on trying to sell everyone on the first visit to your

site and don't take advantage of this incredibly helpful

technology, you will be leaving a lot of money on the table.

Setting up an autoresponder account through Aweber is

extremely easy and the customer service they offer will help

to walk you through the process the first time if necessary.

Taking Payments

When the Internet was first developed, online payment processing was

all but nonexistent. Most businesses simply included information of

where you could send your check or money order or a 1-800 number that

you could call to make a purchase over the phone. The high-speed world

of the Internet makes these options almost obsolete now. If someone is

interested in your product and they're ready to buy it you have to provide

them the ability to do so. This brings us to the point of payment

processing.

Your website must have the ability to process customer's payments in

order to deliver the product they wish to purchase. There are two main

ways to do this, one being a traditional merchant account, and the other

being online payment processors like PayPal. In order to make the most

money from your website you want as many payment options as

possible so choosing both of these options is the best way to do this. If

you're brand new to the world of making money online, using a PayPal

account provides an extremely easy option to get started.

With PayPal, you simply have to register and add your bank account

information and have it verified. Once you've set up your account, you

can install a buy now button directly on your website that once clicked

allows the customer to make a payment that will be sent directly to your

PayPal account.

When you're ready to make a withdraw, simply click withdraw and the

money will be put into your bank account. PayPal simply takes a small

percentage of the transaction as payment the same way the traditional

credit card processors do. For more information on how these work we

suggest you visit each of the websites below:

Merchant Account- www.1shoppingcart.com

Online payment processing- www.Paypal.com

Okay, we've chosen a product, picked a hosting service, designed our

website including specific elements needed to help make it profitable so

were pretty much done, right? Well, almost. If you stopped here, you

would probably never make a dime. The reason why is that no one

knows you exist. The next step in our journey to making money online is

to attract visitors to your website.

How to Get Visitors

The subject of getting traffic to your website is immense. We could

begin discussing a multitude of ways you could use to do this and at

about 100 pages later, we would have just begun to scratch the surface.

Attracting quality targeted traffic is perhaps the most valuable skill you

can possess as an Internet marketer.

Without potential customers, you simply have no business. We decided

the best way to handle the subject in our book here was to simply

provide a list of some of the most common ways of attracting website

traffic with the ones that are generally considered the easiest and will

produce the fastest results first.

It is recommended that you begin to investigate and learn about each

method in more detail because the more knowledge you gain about the

subjects then the more potential money you can make with your online

business.

 Telling everyone you know-once your website goes live,

shout it out to the world! While not everyone that you know

will be interested in the product you may be selling, they may

know of someone who is or may be able to offer you

valuable insight as to how to make your website better.

 Include your website url in your signature-think about

how many e-mails you send in a week. You simply put the

URL of your website underneath your name on every e-mail

and it acts as a constant source of free advertising for you.

Make use of this simple tip and you will get people visiting

your website.

 Article marketing-article marketing is exactly what it

sounds like: articles that are written about the subject of the

types of products you sell are submitted to online directories.

Once these articles have been submitted, other websites may

choose to use your article as content for their own website

and give you credit for writing it as well as a link back to

your website.

If the article is written well and piques the interest of the

reader then they may choose to click on your website. In

addition, the other websites containing your article at link

will help to rank your website in the search engines. This

way, if someone is looking for something in the search

engines on the topic that your product is about, it is more

likely that they will find your website in the search results.

Article marketing is free and can result in immediate clicks if

the content and writing of your article generate interest.

 Linking from other sites-just as in the case of article

marketing, your website link featured on another webpage is

a very good thing indeed. First of all, depending on the

information provided with your link some people may choose

to click on the link to get more information. In addition, all

the links back to your website will help to push you up in of

the results of the search engines as well.

 PPC-PPC stands for pay per click. I do not recommend

starting here until you get some background knowledge of

how this program works. Basically, you bid on a keyword or

keyword phrases that someone might type into a search

engine.

If your bid is high enough then your website will appear at

the top of the listings thereby greatly increasing the potential

that someone will click on your website. Unless your visitors

are extremely targeted, however, you may end up getting a

lot of traffic but no sales. Thus this method of traffic

generation can be very expensive if you don't know exactly

what you're doing.

On the other hand, if you have a budget and understand how

the process works, this could be one of the fastest and most

effective ways to get traffic to your website.

 SEO-SEO stands for search engine optimization. This is the

process associated with making sure that your website is

found when someone types in a search term into a search

engine. This is perhaps the most difficult and most

misunderstood aspects about the subject of Internet

marketing.

Because the Internet has changed so much since its inception,

search engines work dramatically different than they did just

a few short years ago. Because of this, many people are still

trying older tactics that no longer produce real results so

therefore it is easy to become confused with the information

that you find on the net. One key tip that does remain

constant is to make sure that you change and/or update the

content on your site regularly.

When the mechanics of a search engine are indexing websites

for content in order to properly rank them, websites that

feature fresh and updated content rank much better than

others that stay static.

We recommend searching the Internet and reading everything

you can about the process of SEO, but for the time being,

sticking with the techniques above for now will provide

faster and more easily obtained results.

There are many firms that offer search engine optimization

services but be careful, and make sure to verify the results

that they have obtained for others before entering into an

agreement with them or you could wind up spending a lot of

money with very little results to show for it.

You are Now Up and Running!

If you followed all the steps above, you should now have a website that

is live on the Internet, offering a specific product to a specific market,

and hopefully attracting visitors who are making purchases. The entire

process is of course much easier said than done, but if you take the time

to understand the information that has been given and investigate the

resources provided to you via the various web links, you can have your

very own profit producing website set up easily in less than a week.

Once your business is up and running, the work doesn't stop there.

Because this is a business, you should treat it like one and work to

constantly make improvements on all facets including the look and feel

of your website, the conversion rate at which you turn visitors into

buyers, as well as the different ways you can use to drive traffic toward

it. The information created thus far on the subject of Internet marketing

would fill several lifetimes of learning so no matter how much patience

and diligence you have you will simply never learn it all.

The landscape is changing all the time and the best that you can do is try

to stay abreast of the current information about what works and what

doesn't work in the world of online marketing.

We hope this book has been of value to you in learning just what it

takes to begin making money online as you continue your journey, we

want to wish you incredible success and hope that this simple beginner's

guide to making money online was just one part of your journey to

become an Internet millionaire.