When I first started on the internet I fell victim to every money making plan or scheme you could think of. I spent a lot of money and got no where fast.
Was it worth it? You bet. It is this experience that has helped me find my path to my internet success and making real money on the internet. Many motivational systems tell us that ideas begin and are visualized in ones mind. Following through with what ever idea you have is the challenge for you to make it a reality.
The internet is the perfect place for anyone to make a steady income. The problem is many people fall victim and lose focus to all the hype. Their initial goal is often lost or forgotten. I personally struggled with that too. There are affiliate programs and many other ways to make money online but if you really want to make big money on the internet you need to start your own website.
After a lot of research I decided that having my own website truly was the way to go. Starting your own money making website is easy to start. Look at it this way. You start with one page, and add a page or more every day. Before you know it, you can easily have 300 + pages in less than a year. Once the money starts coming in you will never want to stop!
Growing your website on the internet is sort of a slow process, as it takes time for you to get noticed. If you think of it in this manner, and look back as you proceed forward, you will see that your website will continually grow over time as long as you work at it daily.
Here are a few thoughts on how to start your own website and some secrets of making money on the internet:
1. Resell or make your own product and sell it on the internet where you get paid 100% of the profits. The reason to do this is if you sell affiliate products you only get a small part of the sale. If you sold product as an affiliate for $49.99 you might get a commission of $28.00 per sale. If you owned the product you would get the full payment of $49.99 to you. Which would you prefer?
2.Don’t get a website with free hosting because many companies are not dependable.Also many of these free websites are mirrors of many other similar sites that only differ by your affiliate number at the end of the domain name. It is too easy for a customer to not type in the whole domain name, leave off your affiliate "name", and you lose the sale! You can get web hosting at a very low cost. I pay about $9.00 a month for two of my sites.
3. Set up a reputable merchant account! This is a key part of your business to control the money you make. I use 2checkout.com and paypal.com. I found that having both offers your customer a choice and many people like the ease of one over the other. And as always, the customer is boss, so make it simple and easy for them to purchase from you. If you make $500 in one day it is deposited into your bank account for your easy access and control!
4. Make sure you are able to capture your website visitors e-mail address and first name. Then you could run your own newsletter and inform your customers of special deals, refer them to other websites where you can earn affiliate fees or refer them to your own site where you may be aware of a new HOT product that you wish to inform them of. That way you can follow up with customers to come back to your website. I feel a more personalized e-mail with the potential customers name is better than a "Hey You" type address.There are many autoresponders you can use to do this. I'd suggest locating a free one at first since I am guessing you'd like to minimize your
costs when first opening up your website.
5. Design your website to sell! Always give all the information about your product and state the benefits of you product.Give the customer the reasons why your product will solve their problems for them. Have you ever come across a website that had buttons that did not work? Would you stay there or think possibly that that site had some problems? Make sure every part of your website is functional and that you are ready to begin taking orders.You can often put your order taking system in test mode to make sure your order taking is all working.
6. Make sure you Register your website with the top search engines with keywords related to your website. If you are indexed with the top search engines, you will eventually get found by the other smaller SEO's. Start with Google, yahoo, Dogpile, AskJeeves,MSN, AOL,MySpace,Lycos Network,Craigslist,Blogger. Or, just do a search for :"top 10 search engines" and submit to them.Registering with search engines is important for people to find your website online.
7. Link you website to others of similar interest.Use a link management software on your site so other websites can link to you and you can manage the approval of these links by going into your control panel and clicking on approve. I use Reciprocal Manager on my site. As an example of linking, if I sold percussion instruments I would want to link to a site that sold musical instruments. LinkMetro is a good site that can build up your links with other members and bring you a steady flow of targeted traffic to your website.
8. Build it and they will come does not pertain to website traffic and getting sales! Get the word out to as many places as you can! Submit messages to forums. Write articles about your product and submit it to Article sites and directories that are related to your product or service. Yahoo and/or Google groups has a large database of people interested in very specific things.I could join various yahoo or google groups,and post messages about my business which could reach thousands in a matter of minutes! I use this same technique daily and have hundreds of people visit my site just from posting messages at Yahoo or Google Groups. You can also Advertise in ezines related to our product for even more exposure.
9. Joint ventures with other website owners that offer products similar to yours can be very lucrative as well. I'd not suggest you focus on this if you are a newbie. This is a great way to expand the reach of your website. You can work out a deal where you and your internet partner will profit from exposing each other’s websites to visitors.
10. The power of offline marketing! Think about this: If you place a good ad with your website in a magazine or newspaper it will last forever as long as the publication is in good condition. You could be getting hundreds or thousands of customers from an ad you placed months ago, to your website throughout the year. How old are the magazines in your Doctors office?
11. Blogs- These are relatively new and something many internet marketers are using to boost traffic. You can start one for free. Just type in "free blog" and you'll see blogspot.com. There are many courses and informational products that tell you how to set up blogs and make tons of money. I bought a couple and have a review on them on my site.
The only problem with blogs that I see is it is just one more thing to learn and when you are starting an internet business, the learning curve may be overwhelming to some. Have your children help you! It would be a great family project. Please keep in mind Rome was not built in a day. You can work at your site at your pace and I assure you it will grow if you keep at it.
That's how the internet works. Well, so does any business, right?
As a final thought, Starting your own affiliate program is something you definitely want to do once your website is off and running. Paying people to sell your product and pay them a commission works very nicely. On most websites offering a product you will often see at the bottom of the Homepage a link saying "affiliates". That's where they are offering an affiliate program. Imagine having hundreds of people promoting your product. This is one of the fastest ways to success and all the money is coming to you.
In closing theses steps are not hard to implement and any one can have a successful website operating on the internet. The internet is still growing at record paces. The potential to make money on the internet is ever so strong and with the right product, money can be made. It doesn’t take any special skills. If you have a desire to succeed, a product to sell, and a proven internet marketing system, the only thing stopping you from your much deserved success is you.
Come on board, it is a great ride!
Stan Tomaszewski started an internet business in March 2006. Here he offers his honest opinions and truthful views on what you should expect in your start up with tips on how to ensure your success. Stan offers his services to help others achieve their home based business success.
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