Translate Request has too much data
Parameter name: request
Translate Request has too much data
Parameter name: request
I've just read this article by Jay Stockwell How To Make $1000 A Month Online From Scratch. It's pretty good. Especially if you're new to this. It comes in an 8 Part series -
#1 How to make $1000 a month online from scratch
#2 The required mindset for online success
#3 Choosing a niche for your online business
#4 How to plan your online business
#5 How to start your online business
#6 How to get traffic to my website?
#7 How to get my site to make money
#8 How to grow your website income
My intention here isn't to steal his content but to add my own thoughts to it. I've been trying to make that kind of money online for the past three years. Its hard work and sometimes very discouraging. Let's have a look at some of the things he says.
Why don't you think about setting up a little online business?
he says in this first chapter.
Most people either fall into one of two camps. The first camp are the ones who don’t believe they could make money online because they have no skills. The second camp have bought into the idea that the Internet can turn almost anyone into an overnight millionaire.
Yes, well you can make money online but in my experience it's just hobby money - several hundred dollars a month. There are plenty of sharks out flogging programs worth anything from a hundred bucks to a few thousand bucks. And they all promise the big money to be made online. So he's right when he says
Most people only have: * Maybe 5-10 hours a week of spare time.
* Very little start-up capital.
* Basic computer skills.
Yep. Hobby time.
Put simply, for most of you, the biggest hurdle you’ll have to earning $1000 a month online is your own mind....You need to have the right attitude if you want to succeed. I’m very aware that I’m sounding like a Tony Robbins infomercial, but the raw fact of the matter is that your attitude will determine whether or not you succeed.
Well yeah...like anything you have to remain fairly positive-thinking. But there does come a time to cut and run when things aren't working out. I've created and killed dozens of websites that haven't paid their way. And I've lost a few bucks on misguided PayPerClick programs too.
The second enemy of the mind that you MUST get a handle on is overcoming distractions. Once you start your little online venture and you start looking around the Internet for information on this stuff, you’ll be presented with thousands of conflicting opinions and promises of easy riches.
Yes you can easily get distracted by the sharks out there.
I can tell you now that one of the most common characteristics of people who have succeeded online is consistency. They are the ones who have consistently worked on the same thing over a long period of time. They didn’t jump from project to project. They just kept working on the same project with the faith that it would work for them.
That's right. But at the same time, if you've given something your best shot and it's still not paying - kill it off and start again.
The whole business model can be explained simply like this. We aim to attract website visitors who need help with a subject that involves a financial transaction (for example buying a product or paying for information to solve a problem). We provide solutions for these people in the form of useful information that pre-sells them into the right products for their needs. The products can either be other people’s products (via affiliate links) and/or your own products.
Sounds simple doesn't it? He breaks it down into a flow-chart which helps. With 3 levels in the business model.
Content Level The content level is the foundation for this business model. We’ll be setting up a website that has lots of good quality content that serves two purposes. The first purpose is to generate targeted traffic via search engines. The second purpose is to position you as an expert and to get people to trust you. If they trust you, they’ll trust your recommendations for other products and will be happier to buy the products you’ve created.
Hmmm...I'm a bit wary of this trust bit - its the same tack the scammers use. Usually they bombard you with lots of free stuff - keyword tools, blog templates, SEO books before going for the jugular. And while we're at it, I don't particularly trust this writer either - he slips in a couple of affiliate links later on, touting a Website Creator - more on this later.
Traffic Level Traffic is the lifeblood of your site. It’s important to remember that the word “traffic” is a poor way to describe what’s really going on. You need to remember that you’re referring to REAL people interacting with you. Always keep that in mind. It will help you connect more with your audience.
Good advice. Write like you are penning a letter to your best friend. Use simple sentences and simple words. Talk straight. Don't try to impress and don't be a smart-arse.
Monetization Level This business model has a 3 prong monetization strategy.
Contextual Advertising. This simply means using Google AdSense to generate some pay per click income. This is likely to be your smallest monetization source. If your other two prongs are working well, you may be wise to ignore this prong all together.
Affiliate Sales. This is simply writing about good products in a fresh and enthusiastic way that pre-sells people towards purchasing. For example, you might review a particular golf putter and provide honest and helpful advice. You’ll then want to find the cheapest online store for that particular model (that has an affiliate program) and direct people there for the best price. They’ll trust you because you’ve given an objective review of the product, so they’ll be more likely to buy from you. If your review is high quality, you’ll also find other sites linking to you as well.
Yep...Marcus Frind of the free dating site plentyoffish.com might be making millions of dollars a year off Google Adsense - he's their biggest earning client - but the rest of us will be lucky to make a couple of hundred dollars a month. Mostly the clicks pay a pittance 10-20 cents so you need a hell of a lot of traffic - like plentyoffish, for it to work. And Google is continually fiddling with the payment scale.
Your Own Product.
What I’ll be getting you to do is to find experts on your chosen niche. Write a really powerful set of questions that grills them on the subject they are an expert about, then interview them using those questions. You’ll record the interview and then outsource the transcribing of these interviews. Write an intro paragraph and then again outsource the formatting and PDF’ing of the word document. Hey presto, you’ve just developed your first (of hopefully many) info products.
Well I don't think much of this idea. You need to be a skilled interviewer for it to work. I reckon you're better off making a video. And get it onto Google and the other search engines front page with Traffic Geyser - works like a beauty. I've had 8/10 front page listings on Google with this tool. Sometimes you'll see the results in about ten minutes. Amazing tool.
NICHE SELECTION This is an absolutely critical part to your success and should be given plenty of attention. Not so much that you get paralyzed, but enough so that you don’t paint yourself into a corner by picking a loser.
Pretty obvious. You need to find a paying niche. He recommends some good tools to help you here -
Google Keyword Research tool
Type in your major terms and press submit. Your major search terms needs to attract at least an “average” search volume. You can see if they are “average” by holding your mouse over the green bar and looking at the words that pop up. Simple. If it’s any more than average, you need to start looking at the sub-niches within it. It’s likely that the topic is too broad if it’s above the “average” mark. 2) Have commercial interest. So it must have people spending money within that niche. More specifically people must be spending $50 or more on average. Small transactions are not normally conducted online and people normally don’t have much motivation to research, or look for the best deals. Stick to subjects that have decent transactional value. Sure, knitting might be an OK niche, but the transaction costs are too low, and you’ll never make much money from it.
He also recommends the Commercial Intention Tool from Microsoft
3) Has plenty of available, largely evergreen content. You want to make sure your chosen niche has lots you can write about. Then you want to make sure that what you can write about doesn’t quickly go out of date. For example, you don’t want to create a website around something that rapidly changes. While new putters will come out, it’s not as dynamic as developing a site around say, iPods, for example. Whatever content you can write should make money for you for years. 4) Isn’t risky. I personally wouldn’t recommend developing a site that could have legal implications for you. Think carefully about the implications of covering a subject where you’re giving advice that could have serious negative effects on someone's life if you are not an expert (and insured) on that subject. The health and finance industries come to mind.
5) Has a learning curve. If the subject you’re looking at has a learning curve, then people will be researching online and they’ll have problems you can solve or educate them on.
6) Has affiliate programs. This is important because if the subject has no affiliate programs on the topic, we can’t monetize one of our prongs. Plus, it’s an indication that the market is not commercial enough. You can search our directory here for affiliate programs in your niche.
Now look what he has to say here - even though this article is headed How To Make $1000 a Month Online
7) No biz op. It may be obvious for some, but under no circumstances should you create a site around the subject of home businesses or how to make money online. For some reason, this is the first thing people jump into. It’s the most crowded, cut throat, unforgiving market you can choose. Remove it from your list immediately.
The next section has some good advice on choosing domain names and setting up your website and he recommends 
That's O.K. but I'm suspicious when I read this on the same site -
I earn four-figure commissions (and sometimes five-figure commissions) from Ken's affiliate program now, with only minimal maintenance. Ken is a truly amazing, multi-talented individual. Among his achievements, he has taught medicine, designed toys and games which earn millions of dollars in royalties, and invented a "virtually impossible to sell" niche software product - which he sold on the Net, earning $1,000 to $5,000 a day.
SiteSell's fast-selling Site Build It! (SBI) has been my top money-earner for years.
It makes it easy for you to create your own website simply and easily, even if you have no technical knowledge at all. It analyzes which themes will be profitable.
Even better, it helps you optimize the pages for the main search engines and teaches you how to promote your site effectively. This remarkable tool also generates your Google and Yahoo! Sitemaps and automatically submits them when necessary so you don't have to!
Site Build It! doesn't just teach you search engine optimization. It teaches you Internet marketing.
Most important of all, it teaches you how to be successful. No wonder SBI! has thousands of happy users.
And no wonder they recommend it in this article eh?
I must admit I haven't used SiteBuildIt. I've had a look at it. I think I'll stay with the webhost I'm with now - Squarespace - the mob who this blog is hosted with. I've been with them since August 2005 and never had a problem. And Google loves them. I've had brand-new blogs indexed by Google within a day.
Part 6 of this series is titled
and he says in part
There are really two methodologies when generating traffic. One is generating it free, and the other is paying for it.
Quite. But if you can use the search engines to get free traffic its better. And it's not that hard. Most importantly, you need the search engines to index you and you need them to visit you again and again. How do you do that? By optimizing your site and making sure the content is fresh and well-written. Read this article of mine for starters Boost your Google ranking - it's #1 on Google for those keywords BTW.
The series goes on to say
There are really three major ways to generate traffic without any upfront costs - Via Search Engines
Via Direct Links
Via Affiliate Traffic
That's all well and good but if your articles/posts/blogs/content aren't on the first page of Google (for your keywords) they are going to get buried and you're not going to get much traffic at all. And you're not going to make your $1000 a Month Online.
He says
Create content that people value Get links to your content
Rank well in search engines
People find your valuable content and link to you
Rank even better in search engines
Create more valuable content
People find your new valuable content and link to you
Improve search engine and direct linking traffic
Create more valuable content... etc
He makes it sound so easy. But really it's all about your Search Engine Position and the number of quality inbound links you have. And of course your content. Content is still king (although it can be manipulated).
There's a good section there on Keyword Research and there are plenty of Free Keyword Tools out there. Google it. Or use Google's own keyword research tool. That's an invaluable tool.
Can you make $1000 a month online? Yes. But it's quite a lot of work. It doesn't happen overnight. This site of mine is merely a glorified blog. If I were to concentrate on one topic only - a hot topic that a lot of people were interested in reading - I would probably do a lot better with this blog. But my other blogs make me money. Not with Adsense. Forget that. Try affiliate marketing - that's where the money is.
Malcolm Lambe is an Australian living in Paris with his French wife and two small children. He writes on a diverse range of subjects.
View the original article here
The Best Video Series On Becoming and Making a lot of Cash as an Amazon Affiliate!
As things get tough, and more & more people lose their jobs every day, Online Businesses are Booming! Unable to find work, many are starting 'Their Own' online business.
How do you tell the difference between a good deal and a bad deal? Here is your opportunity to learn Kim Kiyosaki's secrets to telling the difference.