Internet Marketing: How to Make Money Online I’ve always been curious about Internet marketing, how to make money online more specifically. We live in an age of explosive technology, where new gadgets and advancements are being made every single day. It has almost gotten to the point where as soon as a product hits the shelves, it has already become obsolete with something newer and better on the brink of making its debut. With that said, there are literally thousands of ways that you can leverage the Internet and tools such as social media networks and iPhones to make a significant amount of money. Never before has it been possible for people to expand their marketing reach to such a widespread audience. As a result, this is the perfect time to take advantage of all of the phenomenal, new opportunities to build your brand and earn a relatively easy income with Internet marketing. With Internet marketing, there are two basic approaches that you can take. First, you can become an affiliate marketer and promote other people’s products and earn a commission on each referral sale. Or second, you can create a product of your own to market and promote. The affiliate marketing approach is obviously the easier of the two and requires the least amount of work. However, in most cases, I would say that the odds of earning a significant income are greater if you create a product of your own to sell. In both cases, you are going to need to create a website, which isn’t as difficult to do as you might think. I would highly recommend purchasing your own domain name because it looks a lot more professional to have a website that ends with .com as opposed to .weebly.com or .tumblr.com. You can get your domain name for just a few bucks a year from sites like NameCheap.com or GoDaddy.com. Then, if you want, you can give your site a very sleek looking layout on one of the free hosting sites, such as WordPress.com. If you decide to become an affiliate marketer, you are going to need to decide on what products to promote, which can be virtually anything, ranging from eBooks to expensive electronic equipment. You can find specific products to promote on ClickBank.com or CommissionJunction.com. Then, once you have been approved by the seller, all you have to do is take the JavaScipt, which they will provide you with, and place it somewhere on your site. If you are going to create your own product, this doesn’t have to be nearly as daunting a task as you might have surmised. A product can be something as simple as a howto eBook. If you are an expert about a particular topic, then you can whip up an eBook, which you can market and sell on your website. The trick to selling both original and affiliate products is to include a topnotch sales letter that will leave people salivating over your offer. In order to do this, you will need to learn and ins and outs of copywriting, which can be broken down into a few simple components. First, you want to sell people solutions rather than products. Second, you need to create an outstanding hook to get people interested. Third, it’s essential to come up with a killer opener to keep people’s attention. And fourth, you need to learn how to effectively fill in the rest of your letter. A fantastic
resource that I would highly recommend is Copywriting Strategies, which will teach you the skills to be able to write a worldclass sales letter in your head. Once you have created a stellar sales letter, the next step is to maintain a blog on your website that you update at least once a week with relevant, nichespecific information to keep people coming back for more. Then, you can create a profile on as many of the social media sites as your schedule permits. Obviously, the more sites you join, the better, but if you only have time to maintain one or two profiles, then I would recommend going with a Facebook fan page and a Twitter account. There are many tricks of the Internet marketing trade, but with the right tools and knowhow, you absolutely can achieve success. Just try not to get blinded by all of the “shiny objects” out there. Stick to a few techniques, do them well, and then let the profits start rolling in.