My first podcast…let’s jump into Internet Marketing…
Don’t Want To Listen? Read Below
While I’m not yet an expert yet, I do know quite a bit about how to make money on the internet. Just like many of you, I too wanted to learn how all these experts you hear about are making tons of money on the internet. Well, I’ve been working at this for three years now, and I’m still not rich nor am I even making a decent income on the internet…but I am making money! Again, I wouldn’t say I’m an expert, but I have figured out several ways to make a little money on the internet, and I think I’ve figured out the keys to making even more.
Two things before I get started. First, statistically 99% of you will try and will fail. That’s just how it is. Some people just aren’t cut out for the job, and yes I consider it to be a job because there is work involved, lots of it. Not physical labor, but lots of research and trial and error that many people just won’t be able to grasp. Most people will give up easily because they don’t see any progress and the time spent starts to add up, meaning lots of hours and no pay. But if you have what it takes and be persistent, you may start to see the light at the end of the tunnel and eventually start making money on the internet.
Secondly, if you are in that 1% that keeps trying, you probably won’t make enough to replace your current income for several months, so I want to share what else I did to make money on the internet when I first started three years ago. Listen to this everyone…THERE REALLY ARE WORK AT HOME JOBS…and I’m not talking about home-based businesses here. There are many top notch companies out there that specialize in providing employment and subcontract based jobs to do completely from your home!
There are many different types of online jobs. A group of the higher paying jobs, which you can actually make a nice living at, fall in the virtual office assistant and transcription category. There are lots of places hiring virtual assistants and even management positions that you can do working at home. I’m not a fast typer, so I looked into a different category, virtual call center work. You know all those commercials you see on TV that say “operators standing by”? Many of those operators are working from the comfort of there own home, they are gravy jobs. I worked on two projects myself, one taking calls for products sold in TV commercials and customer support on many other different companies, such as music CDs, insurance companies, cooking products and much more. The second project was a more indepth customer service and sales. Ever heard of the Home Shopping Network, or the HSN channel? Guess who answers the phone when you call to place an order…me and thousands of other call center agents across the nation, working from the comfort of their home’s. Just read the screen, use the screen to answer questions, and be professional, minimum wage to $14/hr and up. And again, that’s just the projects I worked on. There are many other jobs too, such as General Electric’s Warranty Department, and sales and service for a nationwide florist, and that’s still just one work at home company. There’s also jobs as Dish Network’s Customer Service at $14/hr, as well as several other computer help desk companies. There’s even a job to call a newspaper’s customer’s for satisfaction surveys, and it paid $8 an hour last I checked.
Of course many of these companies don’t hire people directly, a third-party handles it. For details on where to go and what companies are hiring, check out my other web site, WorkAtHomeVirtualJobs.com, where I’m giving away a free list of these companies and much more.
So now that that’s out of the way, lets get back to making money online with a home-based business. And don’t let the word home-based business scare you, because you will be making money from home and if you treat it like a business, your much more likely to succeed. There is a lot to do and much to cover so it takes persistence and determination and lots of research (or really good luck, it does happen).
The first part is research. You have to figure out what people are already buying online, then figure out how your going to get those people to come to you to buy it. Internet marketing is not a build-it-and-they-will-come type of business. A good friend of mine once said, “You can build the greatest web site with a great design and a ton of great features, everything perfect and polished, but unless you tell everyone about it, no one will even know it exists.” So to figure out what people are buying online, pick a topic your interested in because it keeps the research fun and interesting, and Google it. It can be anything you want, but be warned, some topics are bigger than others. Your goal is to pick a topic that has lots of people looking for it, however the flip side of that statement is that the more people that are looking for it, the more people there are trying to sell it to them, which means heavier competition. One key here is to start by making use of what internet marketers call long-tail keyword phrases, which is what people type into Google when they are looking for something specific and less general. There is usually lower competition in long-tail key phrases because there are so many variations to work with. You’ll get less traffic from the individual keywords phrases, but by targeting many of them, you can more easily get your foot in the door.
Once you’ve figured out what to sell and what keywords to use, you have to learn how to get traffic. There are tons of ways to get traffic. Your probably already getting traffic and don’t even know it. Maybe not on your web site, if you even have one, but some of you may have a folowing at places like Facebook and other social sites, forums where you have posted, and picture or videos on places like Flickr and Youtube. And there are even more ways to get traffic, such as writing articles and article marketing, as well as podcasts and youtube videos. There are lots of other things to cover also, such as setting up the site, the details of gaining traffic, checklists to make sure everything is done for maximum potential, and so many other tips – not having all this is why 99% of you will fail. But for the one percent who keep at it, start researching, keep learning, and I’ll be back next week with some more details on building the site, basic marketing tools, and tips for getting more traffic to your site.
