Make Money

How To Make Money Online -
5 Surefire Ways That Cost Very Little To Start

You can make money online if you are armed with the proper knowledge, resources and tools to guide you along the way.  Making money online is not rocket science, nor is it as easy as some people may proclaim.

And if you listen to the wrong people, they will lead you to believe that there is some magic secret trick to making money online.  Well, they are partially correct.  Webster’s dictionary defines secret as “Kept from knowledge or view”.

So its really that simple.  The most powerful tactics to make money online is kept from public view and the only way to discover them is to (1) pay for the knowledge, or (2) learn it on your own.  Both options are feasible except #2 will always take you longer – remember that.

Now that we have demystified the “magic” that some people may try to trap you into believing, you can now see that there are definitely secrets in the world of internet marketing (a.k.a. making money online), but there is NO magic.

Okay so let’s start looking at some ways to make money online that don’t cost a heck of a lot of money…virtually pennies compared to the return.

Article Marketing

Article Marketing is the process of writing informative articles for the sole purpose of getting visitors to your website.  You don’t have to be a pulitzer prize writer to do this either.  Your main goal is to provide information on subjects that people  are searching for and want information on.  You leave some bread crumbs (resource box) in the article that will lead back to your website.

This is a form of internet advertising that brings traffic to your site.  And just as a brick and mortar business advertises and brings people into their place of business, so will this process bring people into your virtual world of business.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is promoting someone else’s product or service in exchange for a commission.  It can involve a variety of methods to drive traffic to the sales page.  You can use pay per click, adwords, banners, classified ads, etc.  But these methods will cost you a little money.

A much cheaper and almost nil method would be to use affiliate marketing to drive traffic to the sales page.  You can write up review articles about the product or service….give the good and the bad about it.  People will love your honest opinion.  Affiliate marketing should play an important role in your overall your business plans.

Niche Marketing

Niche Marketing is marketing to a smaller laser targeted group of people within a larger group.  For example, targeting pet owners of chihuahuas with barking problems is within the larger group of pet owners.  When you laser target a segment or group of people, you can market to them the products and/or services that they are looking for.

The trick with niche marketing is to find that market.  They are out there but you will need to learn some research techniques to locate them.

Blog Marketing

Blog Marketing is using a blog, which is what you are looking at now, to market your product or service.  Blogs have become the rage now especially with the onset of Web 2.0 (information sharing).   Blogs have the capability of offering search engines the information they are looking for.

Not to say that websites don’t have the ability, but in my opinion, blogs are easier to master and offer a variety of plugins to help you do the job better and faster.

Forum Marketing

Forum Marketing is marketing your products or services by way of your signature line in a forum.  This is by no means a directive to find a forum and start spamming by posting useless content.

The key is to join a forum, read the posts and reply with USEFUL content without pointing to your signature.  Within time, the users in the forum will get to know you and build a level a trust.  You will start to get some traffic from the forums just as you do with article marketing.

So there you have it…Five ways to start making money online without investing an arm and a leg.  The only other expenses that would come along with this is the purchase of a domain name for about $10 (yearly fee)  and website hosting about $10 (monthly).

You can do any of this using free hosting, but trust me, if you are serious about building a long term business, investing $10 once a year and $10 a month will pay for itself in the future.

Besides if you use free hosting, you will get a domain that looks like this:  http://myproduct.ThisIsForPeopleWhoWontBuyADomain.com.  If I come across a website like this, and unless the content is powerful (which I have rarely seen) I will skip past that website.

If you treat this like a hobby, then you will get paid like a hobby.  If you treat this as a business, then you will get paid like a business.

For more in depth information on starting your online business, check out my book, E-Business Planning Guide, a step-by-step guide to get you up running the right way.

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