Are you looking for a legitimate way to earn money from your own home using only your internet connection? As you know over the last few years I have spent a lot of my time explaining different methods here on the blog, but one question I got all the time was “what is your method for making money?”. Well it’s taken me quite some time but I have finally managed to put my entire system into one eBook that you can download and read in minutes. But what are the main features of this eBook and will it really make you rich? The answer is yes and I am willing to show you the same secrets that I have used to clear my personal debt and create an income that even makes me money when I’m asleep!

So what are some of the main features of your system?

So as you can see this is a real chance to make money using the net that isnt a get rich quick scheme or some system that you have to pay monthly for. This is one simple ebook that contains everythnig you need to make a living on the net today! If you want to know more just head over to the ebook page and ill explain just how this eBook could change your life!

The thing is no matter the size or function of your site unless you embrace SEO, PPC or both then your doomed to failure. The problem is though both these skills are time consuming to learn and implement, but isn’t everything? Even when you know seo it still takes plenty of time to get results so that combined with running the site could make it hard to achieve part-time, but anythings possible.

Ok so after all that negativity what do you actually have to do to make it with your site?

• You have to get out there and connect with other bloggers and websites, this is at the core of Internet marketing. A good way to get started is guest posting, this is were you write a post or article for someone else’s site and in exchange they give you a link back, sounds simple but trust me its still a lot of work. As we know incoming links help both with search engines and your overall popularity so no-matter how long it takes you’ve got to do it. If your not sure where to get started myblogguest is a free forum where you can write guest posts for other webmasters.
• You have to stand out at least a little bit because there’s a million sites out there all doing the same thing. Honestly if you want to build up return visitors you’ve got to give them a reason to come back. Ultimately you’ve got to give your audience what they want and in a clear structure they can understand. So if your an online store offer discounts the competition cant because even though you take a hit in the short term on price the exposure you gain long term is always worth it.
• Consistency is another big part of the equation, are you going to stick with this gig? Are you going to be getting new links for your site on a weekly basis. Will you be creating content for your site for the next 12 months every week to keep it fresh? Obviously the amount of work required is going to depend on the niche your in but even so the work is going to be there until you reach your goal, are you prepared for that?

So that’s my problem, I’m just a realist I suppose but better that I think than one of the get rich quick gurus. I’m always looking for legitimate ways to earn money online that actually deliver a return for the time spent. I cant imagine anything worse than spending lots of time and money on some system that I didn’t fundamentally understand, are you prepared to trust in luck? Or do you want to spend time learning a process like Internet marketing which is already proven?

You still have to buy the product!

Also bear in mind that you’re handing your personal details over to these guys who will most likely be spamming you to death for the next 100 years until you finally tap-out. Am I a born sceptic or just hard to please, I can’t tell but my view on these “free for all” systems that allow anyone to make money has never really changed, it can’t work, it doesn’t work and it never will.

One thing I will say is you can’t really lose anything with these cashback schemes apart from your time, this is different from the daily “stock market secrets” eBook that gets pedalled to my junk folder. The real scams always involve some crazy up-front investment with promises of millions down the line, I wonder how many people get sucked in, probably more that you’d think.

So is it possible to earn real money on the web?

Well yes it is but as mentioned many times before it always involves time and effort. Sometimes it’s in research of the idea/concept and sometimes it’s just 100% application. My main money making “scheme” is web-development and internet marketing which in a nutshell is building websites and getting as many people too them as possible (like how I summed up a few years work in one sentence?). Well actually it’s not going to take years but at the same it’s not like you’re going to get to a certain level and quit, its lifelong learning and not in the pretend university way.

The Idea that I have a system is also a bit of a misnomer, I have concepts and ideas that are never set in stone. The web is constantly changing and how people are finding websites is too, just look at the rise of social media companies like facebook and twitter. Traditionally seo people are terrified of social media but I think it just provides even more opportunities, ten years ago if you wanted to reach a few million potential customers it would cost you thousands. Now with a good idea and some effective viral marketing you can do it for about a £10!

Still you’re not going to see any of these money making ideas that actually work in the mainstream any time soon,  its way to complicated to fit into a 30 second TV spot. Until next time…

I hear a lot about passive income these days but I think many people have the concept wrong. It’s not an income without work but it does mean the business doesn’t need constant attention in order to earn money, you can often put the time in when you have it which is ideal for many people. So what is the system and how much does it cost? Well I’m not selling a system for a start but in short I make money by building sites that I then sell advertising on, the great thing about this concept is I’m not responsible to anyone. How much time you want/need to put in is really up to you, but ultimately only you will be responsible for your success.

There are some other great little businesses that earn money with the net but if you’re looking to start part-time then:

• You can’t be spending too much time dealing/negotiating with people.
• Shouldn’t need you to check in every day, you want to only spend time when you have it.
• Not much investment (I’m assuming if you’re willing to do 2 jobs you’re not rich!)
• You want to focus on learning one or two main skills, you don’t have the time to learn everything.

The great thing is that building sites really does tick all of the boxes above and its getting very accessible for non-technical people to get started. But since I’m not trying to sell some overpriced ebook or pyramid scheme there’s no need to promise a magic formula that will do the work for you. It’s still a complex and time consuming business to learn, but if it was easy wouldn’t everyone be doing it?

On a slightly un-related note check out the video by Jim Rohn above, only just discovered his stuff lately but he does have some genuinely good points (not just the Anthony Robbins hype). Until next time.

I’m not trying to say that everything needs to be complex to work but I can guarantee if its point and click it’s unlikely to produce results on its own. That doesn’t mean simple ideas can’t be part of a much larger money making plan, for instance:

• WordPress CMS, 5 minutes and you have a website.
• Cheap web-hosting that’s point and click to setup.
• Contacting other webmasters to promote your site, time consuming but simple.

The thing is I keep seeing people starting up these out of the box ecommerce sites selling the exact same products at the exact same prices as everyone else, why bother? Everyone seems to think that “internet” is a magic keyword that results in instant money. You look at some of the most successful net businesses and while the infrastructure they used was simple the concept and idea were unique and original.

I really think that in order to put together a collection of ideas that work you need to try a lot of things that don’t. This too is another stumbling block as fear of failure can be a major hurdle for anyone starting a business on the net.

Foundation 07 // Chris Sacca from Kevin Rose on Vimeo.

Also on a slightly unrelated note I wanted to post this great video by Kevin Rose I found. It’s one of a series where he interviews successful entrepreneurs and tries to decipher their methods. It’s quite long but I promise its worth a watch, only problem with these kind of videos is they can be quite addictive, information overload can be a real problem!

In some ways it does depend exactly what idea you’re trying to get off the ground because not every site is competing in the same type of market. However the principle of getting what you’re doing out to influential people holds firm no matter what your site is about. To me the basics are:

• Contact other bloggers, don’t just ask for a link but explain what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.
• Forums are a great way to get in touch with real people. But not just any forum, try to find one which is related to your industry, you need people who are engaged.
• Twitter/Facebook/Youtube have changed the game in terms of how fast you can become popular. It’s now possible to reach millions of people in a matter of hours, but only if you have viral content (that’s a big if).

You see whether you’re the exec at coca-cola or your some local mechanic trying to rank your site in your home city, the principles are the same, it’s just the scale that changes. At the heart of this game web promotion is a popularity contest and there’s a million ways to become popular (just like the real world).

The reason I’m pointing all this out is that so many people do have great and unique ideas for websites and ways to earn from them. But unless you have your marketing/seo/ppc strategy 100% then you’re going to fail. The problem still remains that even in 2011 internet marketing is the afterthought post web-design. Honestly id rather spend ¼ of the budget creating the website and the rest promotion, at least that way I have a real chance of making money.

So that’s it for this post, what crazy methods do you have for promoting your idea?

• Some technical knowledge. Note I’m only saying some because you don’t really need to be able to program to build a website, most out of the box platforms look great from the start e.g wordpress, but it is handy to know a little html.
• Design know-how. Again I’m not really talking about this from a technical point of view, just from the viewpoint that you know what looks good and what doesn’t. Having an eye for creating something that people find easy to use is also very important.
• Marketing. Probably the most important factor and worthy of more than just a paragraph here. However you really have to know what you’re doing here if you’re investing money into the business, the only real way to learn is to practice so it’s best to start with a small project/site before going crazy.
• Perseverance. Also very important and actually the one that causes the most failures. It can take much longer that you expect to create a successful site so how are you going to keep going? Also what if it fails completely, do you have the willpower to start again, most people don’t.
• Analysation. Fancy word but all it means is the ability to figure out what’s working/not working for your site and why. This could be anything from what your seo efforts are not successful to why visitors aren’t converting into sales. It’s that ability to interpret stats into action and to adapt what you’re doing that separates great webmasters from the rest.

Five points seems a bit sparse for what can be a huge process, still you always need a base to start from so I hope it helps. Part of the problem I’m finding with trying to document a lot of this website building process is there’s just too much to cover, plus the fact that everyone has their own process for doing things and overloading people with too much info could do more harm than good! Still I hope the tips above help if you’re thinking about starting a site.

So this has got me thinking about a way to in-directly earn money online by providing services to these “lost” businesses. It’s true there’s a million and one people doing web-design these days but how many companies actually have the promotion and marketing thing working well? I’ve always thought there was money in marketing smaller businesses for two main reasons:

• They are usually competing in a smaller market so it shouldn’t be difficult from a technical point of view to deliver results. Think making them No1 for “Mechanic in Birmingham”, how hard is that gonna be?
• Everyone else is overlooking these smaller businesses in the race to land the big fish. Imagine if you had a load of these small companies paying a monthly fee (£50) for promoting their site online, that can really add up.

I suppose the point I’m making is that while I love affiliate marketing, seo and all that stuff often you can make more leveraging your skills to real world businesses, the key has always been to interpret and adapt to what’s happening, it’s what all great entrepreneurs do.

What it all comes back to though is acquiring as skill that the market demands, whether that’s graphic design, seo or programming its only possible to leverage what people need and what your good at. It’s a common factor they don’t talk about in the get rich quick ebooks, if you wanna make money on the web you need to be bringing value to the table in one way or another.

One very important point that I can’t miss out is how much time your average “business to business” provider spends dealing with people. I can tell you first hand from the web design industry that sometimes you can spend more time dealing with a client and all their “issues” than building the site. The problem is you often don’t know that you have a difficult client until it’s too late. At the other end of the scale though it is possible to get clients that are great to work with and it’s even better when they have regular work, its kinda like hitting the lottery when this happens (for them and you).

Still with all that being said I’m sure the mixture between offline/online business is going to appeal to some people for the reasons listed above. I do like listing all these different ideas I have to admit, when it comes to earning money online there’s a million methods and a million variations on each one. Everyone always puts their own spin on any money making idea (they have to). Until next time…

So it may sound quite simple so far, i.e. all you gotta do is give google some money and they display your ad on the search results, but it’s not so easy. For a start there’s a few mystery formulas that decide how much you per for each click on your ad. Google weighs up the quality of your site and your account history to work out how much they want to charge you (I told you it was strange).  Another big headache is picking the right keywords because if you pick the wrong one (doesn’t covert into sales) then you’re going to be out some money. Also bear in mind that to do a proper test to see if a keyword is profitable you’re going to have to stick with it for a while, I heard on average £400 before you can call it a day.

As far as I know there are two basic forms of PPC for earning money that marketers are using. The first is where your selling something online directly to people and you want to increase both sales and awareness of your store. The second method is where internet marketers create landing pages for offers provided by affiliate companies, i.e. they don’t actually sell the product they just forward you on. I suppose the second method seems pretty simple but the reality is that finding traffic that converts can be very difficult and also expensive if there’s lots of competition. However I do firmly believe that when it comes to income the top affiliate marketers who work with PPC are the ones making the most money on the web out of all of us. I’ve heard stories of PPC gurus making upwards of £500,000 on a single offer!

One common theme I do see with all PPC people is they are stats junkies! You see the margins in pay per click can be very close, quite often people are relying on scale to make any money. For example if you have a campaign where you spend:

75p per click X 10,000 clicks = £7,500

Conversion ratio of 5% = 50 sales

Commission per sale needs to be £150 + before you make a profit.

As you can see there’s a few scary numbers there, the most important one though is your conversion ratio. Even a 1-2% swing can be the difference between a profit and a loss.

I suppose it’s the “loss” factor that has so far stopped me from getting into the PPC game, with organic marketing the most I can lose is my own time, and while that is valuable too I can live with it.  So that’s all I have on pay per click for the moment, let me know if any of you guys are having success with it or thinking about trying.