“I make a living online!”
That’s a statement right? Right!
But is it a statement of fact?
Who knows?
Well, I do because I know it’s true, but how do you know I’m telling the truth?
You don’t of course. But there are some things you can look for that will help you decide.
How often have you seen something like:
“Make a ton of cash - now!
No selling
No MLM
No stock to buy
No customers to deal with
Join our upside-down, instant-cash matrix now and get rich!
It goes without saying that the above is dubious to say the least. Yet, many people fall for ads like this on a regular basis.
So, the old saying “If it looks too good to be true, it probably is”, could be words of wisdom.
Golden Rule: Go with your gut feeling.
Let’s get down to brass tacks (sorry about that, my parents are English and they talk in a strange tongue which rubs off on me sometimes).
Grade these statements:
1. Anyone can make a living online!
2. You don’t need capital to start a business!
3. It’s much cheaper to start a business online than in the ‘real world’!
4. You don’t need to sell products or services to make money online!
5. You can make money instantly online!
These are my thoughts on the above:
1, 3 & 4 - generally speaking, true.
2 & 5 - generally speaking, false.
An observation about 1 above is to make a distinction between ‘making money’ and ‘earning a living’. The former could be a one-off 5 cents, while the latter could need to be $100 per day, depending, of course on individual requirements.
My dad often say’s; “you don’t get owt for nowt!”
Translated into American English it means; “there’s no such thing as a free lunch!”
Never invest in an opportunity that you are not sure about. Instead, find something that you are interested in and will enjoy doing. In other words; do what you like doing, and the money will follow.
“Okay Adam”, I hear you say, “get to the point”.
The point is this:
If you expect to make a living online without doing any work and without spending any cash upfront, go get a ‘proper’ job instead - preferably one that allows you to daydream a lot.
Hwever, if you’re prepared to spend some time, researching, listening & learning and have allocated some kind of budget (we’re not talking megabucks here), then it’s perfectly feasible to make a living online.
I started an enterprise about seven months ago with $300 and it’s now earning me $500 per month residual income and growing. It took some hard work and a steep learning curve at first but now it’s got into gear and I could virtually leave it alone to keep increasing month on month.
The Internet is a fantastic source of information - it’s up to you to find that information and decide whether it’s worth using or just more ‘pie in the sky’.
I know it held me back for nearly two years before I finally saw it. You don’t need to take that long 
Learn from my mistake today and succeed.
I wanted to title this article The Ultimate Secret To Your Online Success. But I suspected that not many people would actually believe the claim. As I wanted as many people learn from it as possible, I settled for a less catchy but more believable title.
I consider what I ‘discovered’ the ultimate secret not because you can’t find it anywhere. You can. In fact many successful people talk about it quite openly.
I do consider it a secret because it took me almost two years online to discover. It stared me right in the eyes the whole time, yet I couldn’t see it. As far as I was concerned it was hidden from me.
Then after two years of struggling to make any decent income online, it was time for some deep soul searching.
I had my back against the wall: It was either turn it around and start making money online, or go back to my old career. For a while I also considered selling one of our homes, but my wife and I decided that this was a dumb idea. Selling a house was not going to solve my problem. It would only prolong my online agony.
What I really needed was to discover what I was doing wrong for the past two years, and change it. Otherwise, I was quite prepared to go back to my successful computer programming career. (But I just didn’t like the idea of working for someone else again.)
It didn’t take me long to discover what I was doing wrong. And this brings me to the ultimate secret:
LASER FOCUS
If you have been trying to make money online and haven’t been very successful, you can probably relate to some of the following.
While still at my old job, I discovered the world of the online marketing. Got quite excited about the possibilities.
I did some research and have invested in what I considered to be the best ebook on the subject.
Few months later when the opportunity came up (or so I thought at the time), I decided to become a full time online marketer. I also decided to specialize in affiliate marketing.
I really applied myself the first couple of months or so.
Then I discovered another great book on affiliate marketing. Bought it.
Then I discovered this great tool that would help you not only create great looking affiliate websites, but would also tell you what you needed to change on each page in order to make it optimized for search engines.
I really liked the idea, so I bought the tool.
Slowly but surely, I was becoming more and more confused. Which guru do I follow? All three approaches worked. But I had to know which one worked better (I’m very analytical by nature 
… Instead of following one, I began to follow them all.
I lost my focus. As I lost focus, my search engine traffic stopped growing. As my traffic stopped growing, my income stopped growing as well. I started becoming more and more frustrated and searched for other, “better” ways of making money online.
Then I discovered that another affiliate marketer got quite successful buying ads on Google. I had to find out how. Bought that ebook too
It only started getting worse from here on.
Over the period of little more than a year, I managed to spend thousands of dollars on various Internet marketing ebooks and courses. Most of them were really good. I always do a pretty thorough research and rarely am unlucky enough to buy rubbish (although it does happen occasionally).
The problem was not with the materials I bought, the problem was that I didn’t apply any of them long enough to see the full results.
I wasn’t following any one expert for long enough to give myself a fighting chance. I was too distracted. In short, I lacked FOCUS.
Affiliate marketing is one of the greatest opportunities on the face of the Earth. And so too are dozens of other methods of making money online. Search engines do reward with free traffic those that apply themselves diligently. Yes, you can make money with Google AdWords, if you stick with it and study it hard enough.
Why am I telling you all of this?
It certainly doesn’t give me any satisfaction to talk about my failures. The only reason I wanted to bring this up is to make you aware of what you are probably doing wrong yourself.
Please learn from my mistakes. Life is simply too short to make all of the mistakes yourself.
I want to save you months or years of frustration. Once you waste that time, it’s gone forever. Not to mention the financial and emotional cost.
You need FOCUS. Not just any type of focus. You need LASER FOCUS. If you look at a 40 Watt light bulb, all you see is a nice, soft light, probably not strong enough to light up an average size room properly. But you take the same 40 Watts and put it out of a laser gun, and what you will discover is that this FOCUSED beam of light can cut through various objects like a knife can cut through paper. Wow. Same amount of energy, different focus. LASER FOCUS.
Focus means, doing only one project at a time.
Focus means, bringing your current project to fruition, before you embark on another one.
Focus means you stop buying every new ebook or PHP script that comes out - which you often do out of fear of missing out.
Focus means unsubscribing from all ezines, except one or two that you consider the absolutely best ones for your particular situation.
Focus means not wasting your time surfing the net. At least not until all of your tasks for the day are completed (and even then you need to put a strict time limit on it).
The day you regain your focus, your life will change around. Mine has.
May the focus be with you.
If you are not blogging for your business then you should be. While many people simply dismiss blogging because of its description as a web diary they are missing a lot of traffic and revenue generating opportunities every day. Are you one of those missing out?
In truth blogs are much more than a simple web diary. They are actually a content management system and/or an easy web site template. Blogging software allows you to begin posting your content to the Internet in minutes and when you harness that ability with an RSS feed you have a powerful traffic magnet.
I have come up with 7 reasons why every business should have a blog and RSS feed.
1. Publishing a regularly updated blog helps you keep in touch with your existing audience and/or customer base. You can publish updates, news, or thoughts in your blog as well as answer questions.
2. A blog can help you attract new customers. Your blog entries (posts or articles) will become fodder for the search engines and will attract new visitors. If your blog answers the visitors question or attracts their interest you have just found another qualified lead.
3. Blogs and RSS feeds often rank higher in search engines than traditional web sites. Search engines love blogs and RSS feeds. If you design your blog properly then every time you update it the search engines are notified. Even if you don’t regularly ping most search engines will revisit blogs more frequently. Plus the very organization of a blog lends itself to spidering and good search engine ranking.
4. Blogs can help you establish or build your reputation in a particular field. As your blog grows you will demonstrate your knowledge in your chosen niche.
5. Blogs and RSS feeds are good revenue streams. You can add pay-per-click ads, affiliate ads, or sell ad space on your blogs. In fact, many PPC companies also provide the ability to add PPC to your RSS feeds.
6. Blogs are great ways to generate leads. Even if you don’t want to put any advertising on your blog you can use it to promote or capture leads for your own programs. These are great leads as the fact that they came from your blog means they are already interested in your topic and predisposed to your individual message.
7. Creating your own blog is the easiest way to establish a presence on the Internet and creating an RSS feed is even easier. In fact, it is also the cheapest way to get started on the Internet as there are a number of free blogging sites out there. I started out with blogger.com and usually recommend them but have heard others point to several other top blogging sites as well. The blogging software that I now use is WordPress and also happens to be free. In fact, most web hosts now offer WordPress (or other free blogging software) as a free site add-on through Fantastico. Installing WordPress from scratch is quick and easy but Fantastico makes it even easier. Blogs created at Blogger have an RSS feed created for them and WordPress also creates feeds in several variations automatically.
As you can see there are several benefits to starting your own blog and RSS feed. If you can count that many benefits from an Internet marketing technique that is also free and easy then you are foolish not to begin using it for yourself.
What do you do when you have a brand new shiny web site, and no way of promoting it? Well for starters you could hold an online press conference. This is actually a very simple process. You will either hire a professional to write out a web press release and have it reviewed by an editor, or you can be brave and take your chances by writing it yourself. When you decide to do it yourself you take a great risk of being either very disappointed, or shut down entirely.
There are other ways of promoting your new web site however; you could always go the route of affiliation. This is a good method of not only promoting your new site, but an easy fashion of making some quick money as well. How this works is you sign up for an affiliation to a site, generally you will want to find a site that has some relevance to the site you are trying to promote. When ever someone goes to the site you are affiliated with, and they link on to your site by pay per click method it takes them to your site and right into the thick of your content. This can be the unfortunate part, whenever someone clicks onto your site from your affiliate; you end up paying the affiliate for the transfer of sites. Although this could easily be a very small fee to the affiliate, the point to remember is if they come and you pay the affiliate, there is no guarantee that they will buy from you.
This could easily become a very costly endeavour if you are getting many time wasters, and no buyers. This is where you will be paying for people to view but not pay. As you know this is no way to conduct a business. Sometimes people go to the extent of hiring a service that guarantees web traffic. This service states that they can increase traffic to your site, or generate hits if you like. The problem with this theory however, is that you cannot guarantee anything, you can never be sure that you will ever generate traffic, let alone sales. This is in no way to say that the program that they offer is a complete waste of time and money, it is just that absolutely no organization or single person alike can truly guarantee that they can generate traffic for you to the point that you will see successful results on your site.
Which leads back to the first mentioned thought, is it not worth the time, money, and effort, to ensure that you are getting the best exposure for your site? Don’t waste your money, time, and sanity wondering whether or not you will receive this exposure to your site. Go get it yourself.
When you have a website, one of your most difficult tasks is to figure out a way to get people to come visit your site. If you are selling something, it becomes vital for your business that people will come and take a look at what you have built. The easiest way you can get more traffic to your website is to promote. Promoting a website is not a difficult task. In fact, it doesn’t even have to cost any money. Take a look at these ideas of promoting a website and bring more traffic to your site right away.
The first thing you can do to start promoting your website is start trading space with other websites. You can find websites and offer them space on your website to advertise their site. In return, you would get a free space on their website. Many times you will be able to earn more money if you make deals with sites who offer products that are related to yours, without being in competition. You might have to talk to fifty website owners to get a few to agree, but if you can do this for free, it will be worth it.
Another way you can go about promoting a website for free is by utilizing blogs and message boards to your advantage. When you post thoughtful comments on random blogs and message boards that somewhat relate to your website, you will be reaching more potential consumers. For example, if you have a fish hook website, you could post about your website on a fishing blog or message board. Those who came there would be most likely your targeted consumers and you could earn more money this way.
So, as you can see, to earn money online you do need to learn how to promote your website. However, you don’t have to pay an ad company a ton of money to do it for you. You may have to put in some time and effort, but you will be able to take on the task yourself.
Have you ever considered an internet home business? Would you like to make money and work at home at the same time? Let’s face it who wouldn’t. The internet can reach across the globe. It is one of the single most important inventions of our time. You can purchase goods, talk or read emails with the click of a button. The internet has also opened up a new marketplace, one which is available and easily accessible by the general public. It’s called the make money online industry and everyone wants to get in on the action.
Take jewellery for instance. For years people have made their own handmade jewellery and sold it at farmers markets or to their friends. This very simple idea, with the help of the internet, can now be used to make your very own profit making internet home business.
All you have to do is get a business web site. These web sites will allow you to take orders using credit cards or paypal. You can set up shopping carts and design your own web site to attract customers. You can also hire a professional to do it for you. Either way, your web site is the ultimate marketing tool. It’s important that you make it easy to use and appealing to your customers.
Next thing to worry about is your product. You have to have something to sell. If you’re using the jewellery idea, you need to make sure that your product is the best that it can be. Having a wide assortment of jewellery is probably the best idea and if you don’t have any you can always sell other peoples, that the great thing about these excellent work from home ventures, you don’t have to have your own product to make money online.
Any successful work from home business is what you make it. You are ultimately your own boss and to be successful you need to be both ambitious and be able to take chances. You will have to buy supplies, set up your web site and work out the details before you’ll see one penny. This means having a budget, and working within it, probably at a loss, for some time.
Millions of people make money online and work at home. You can too you just need to believe in yourself and take the plunge. Start your profit making internet home business now.
If you have started out on your quest for a successful home business, then you have probably already figured out that your small business venture needs a website to compete with the big boys and maintain every aspect of your relationship with your customers. But once you have your website up and running, you’ll need some website promotion ideas so that people know about your website. After all, no one will visit your website if they don’t know it exists in the first place.
The first of your website promotion ideas is submitting your website to all the major search engines.google,yahoo,msn, etc, Search engine traffic is a major draw to websites and most web masters will tell you that the vast majority of their traffic is coming from search engine clicks. Most of the major search engines have a specific page you can use to submit your site. Once it’s submitted, it will usually take a couple days to a week before it starts showing up in keyword searches.
Other website promotion ideas include advertising your website on internet message boards and discussion forums centered on subjects related in some way to your business. For example, if you run a small business selling music or lyric products, you could go to message boards and discussion forums frequented by music lovers.
Other tried and trusted website promotion ideas include affiliate and banner exchanges. You can contact other websites involved with the same target market as yours and ask to exchange banners on each others websites, or you can sign up at a banner exchange portal that will automatically generate banners for other sites on your site and banners for your site on other participating sites.
For even more website promotion ideas, there are many online resources dedicated solely to teaching people how best to create awareness of their web site through the internet at large and strategies for attracting more visitors to their website. Start with these basic ideas and when you’re more confident, step up on your adverting some more! more traffic means more business.