How To Make Money Online

If you’re looking how to truly make money online, then you’ve come to the right place.

There are a lot of snake oil salesman out there trying to sell you some pie in the sky song and dance about how easy it is to make millions of dollars sitting by the pool sipping on a mojito.

I wish I could tell you it really was that easy, but if it was, there’d probably be nobody left to serve us mojitos.

So I put together this page to give you an idea of what it really takes to make money online, and what some of the fundamentals are.

Nobody is Eagerly Awaiting Your Website (Except your mother)

There are millions of websites online containing billions of pages.  So if you think that just because you launched a new website that people are just naturally going to visit it, I’ve got some oceanfront property I’d like to sell you in Arizona.

If you put up a website, you need to think about how you’re going to promote it.  While I have methods that I teach here at NoPantsMarketing.com that are extremely effective (especially if you’re on a limited budget), there’s more than one way to skin a cat.

The thing I want you to keep in mind is that you are going to need to promote your online business if you truly want to make money online.

Still Need To Provide Value

Even if you’re product is the content on your website and your plan is to sell advertising space like a magazine, television station, or newspaper, you need to remember that your content needs to provide value to people.

Don’t get caught up in “automated website building software” that can help you build 200 websites per day.  Trust me, three years from now you’ll be far better served building just one quality website than if you try to use software to automate the process.  Last I checked, computers weren’t all that good at writing so it makes sense to leave the writing of your website to humans, not machines.

Capiche?

Good… let’s continue.

Getting Started
One of the great things about starting an online business is the low barrier to entry.  If you wanted to start a traditional business, you’d need loans or investors, or possibly both.  You’re generally looking at five figures of startup capital at a minimum and possibly seven figures to get going.

With an online business, you can literally raise enough money to start your business by going to sell plasma and using the cash you just earned.
While having more money to invest in your online business is certainly helpful because it can help you get better tools and more information, the reality is that it takes very little monetary investment to start making money online.

Essential Gear

If you’re reading this page, you probably already have all the tools you need to get started.  A computer with an internet connection (or access to one like at your public library) are all you need.

8 Ways To Make Money Online

Online Auctions
While the first place that comes to mind for a lot of people is eBay, there are plenty of places where you can sell your items online in an auction format.  While it tends to be competitive, the nice part is that auction sites provide attract the visitors looking for what you have to offer – you don’t have to worry about getting the traffic, just making the sale.  Here’s a good training program if eBay sounds like the way you’d like to start.

Ecommerce Websites
This is the next step up for someone who has been selling on auction sites.  You can launch your own website to start selling items.  Focus on a specific area of specialization and stay out of the computer/electronics niche.  You’ll need a marketing plan in place to get traffic to your website, but you have more control than if you were selling on an online auction marketplace.

Information Marketing
Many people feel that selling information is the ultimate product.  Think ebooks, instructional DVDs and manuals.
Multi-Million dollar businesses have been built selling nothing but ebooks.

Email Marketing
This type of business goes hand in hand with information marketing.  And there is a big difference here between legitimate email marketing and spam.  Never, ever spam people.  But building a list of targeted people can be an extremely lucrative way to make a living online.

Consulting
If you’re very knowledgeable in a certain area and would prefer to work with other business owners and help them grow their businesses, then the life of a consultant may be right up your alley.  A good consultant will get paid based on the results they get for a client, and not on an hourly rate.

Blogging
This is an extremely easy way to get started.  Launching a blog is inexpensive, and if you can turn on a computer and type, you’ve already got the technical skills required to be a blogger.

Making money from a blog can be done by selling advertising space, selling products as an affiliate, or by offering your own products (which is what I do on this blog).

Affiliate Marketing
This is my personal favorite and one I recommend to folks new to those whole “make money online” thing.  Learning how to becoming successful with affiliate marketing teaches you indispensable skills for making a living online.  You’ll learn how to drive targeted people to offers and you get the advantage of being able to focus just on the selling aspect of online marketing instead of the somewhat intimidating (especially, for the novice) product creation part of an online business.

Business Coaching
This is an area that has really been exploding in recent years.  Business owners are turning more and more to coaches to help them expand their businesses.   Even Tiger Woods has a coach.  If a guy making $111 million per year still has a coach, the rest of us could probably use one.   And coaching doesn’t require you to necessarily be better than the person you’re coaching.  You just need to be good at teaching and seeing opportunities that other people don’t see.

I hope this article gave you some insight as well as some useful ideas on how to make money online.  If you’ve decided that you’d like to give it a try, I recommend getting my training program, How To Start A Home Based Business For Less Than $25 – I’ll even send you the training DVD for FREE!