Earn Money Online: It’s possible, and it’s not even that hard. How I got started…
I started on my quest to earn money online after my son was born. I didn’t want to go back to work & have my son in the care of strangers all day. I took maternity leave from a job where I was earning about $2,000 per month with horrible hours and so-so benefits. I had no intention of going back, and once I ran the numbers it was a done deal: child care would have cost me at least $800 per month.
Was it worth $1200 to go back to work? I didn’t think so. Could I find a way to make the money, somehow, from home? I figured I’d try.
So I started out learning the basics of website design, getting domain names, various ways to “monetize” a website, etc. I was at a point where I was easy prey for marketers selling “make money from home” hype products. Luckily, I didn’t spend money where I shouldn’t have. I did purchase Site Build It early in my online income career, and it’s a purchase that helped me immensely. Site Build It gave me the framework I still use for making niche websites. It helped me get organized and establish a system for putting together a money-making site. I don’t need SBI anymore, but if I were a beginner it would definitely be a good purchase.
Then I learned how to make money buying and selling used books. This wasn’t entirely online income, since I did have to go out to thrift stores and library sales to find the books. Once I had books to sell, I’d list them on Amazon and sometimes eBay. I’d take a daily trip to the post office to ship the books, and Amazon would deposit the money into my bank account. Not bad. This process was made much easier with the help of a tool called ScoutPal that would give you the market price of any book with an ISBN. With the used books business, I got close to replacing the income I lost by not going back to work. And it was fun, I was home with my son. That was the goal.
Still, I wanted a business that didn’t rely on being out scouting around so much of the time. With the book business I could spend an afternoon searching thrift stores for good sellable books and only come home with a few, making it barely worth the time & gas money. Other times you’d hit the jackpot, but it was unpredictable and fairly time consuming for a part time income. I did most of my work with my son in tow or when my husband took over child care. But I needed another idea…
I invested some money in learning copywriting. It could be a good business on its own, or at the very least a very good skill to have. I read about marketing and business. After a while, it hit me. I wrote an e-book on a topic that I knew well. It was a topic that happened to have a “starving crowd” to go with it, so it was an instant hit.
With the e-book, I put together all of the skills I’d spent years piecing together, slowly, whenever I had free time. The e-book made use of my writing ability, but that was just the beginning. It had to have exposure, of course. So I built a website. It needed to be explained to people in a way that they would want to buy it. So I wrote the sales copy on the website. I did my own SEO, my own website design, everything. And this is how a stay-at-home mom with no special skills began earning a significant income online.
From the e-book I branched out into niche websites that earn Adsense and affiliate income. These are actually easier to put together than the e-book (and the e-book sales site) and are what I will focus on when sharing the methods I use to earn money online. I will recommend products on this blog, but only useful & valuable products that will help you earn money online. I don’t recommend products that I think will keep you stuck in that “chasing your tail” mode where you keep thinking you need to buy something else in order to earn money online.
You have to learn and then take action. You have to figure out what works by doing it, not by buying the hot info product of the week.
That being said, the products I have found useful & valuable have been:
Desperate Buyers Only This is actually an e-book about how to choose a topic and write and e-book! Even if you’re not writing an e-book, the research techniques she explains for finding in-demand topics are brilliant and worth the price!
Day Job Killer Much better than I was expecting. Explains very straightforward and smart techniques for making money with pay per click (PPC) campaigns. This will teach you a ton about selecting products to promote as an affiliate, getting PPC campaigns up and running, setting up squeeze pages, and making people want the product you’re promoting.
The Super Affiliate Handbook A classic and an essential read if you want to learn how to be a good affiliate marketer.
Read the amazing true story of how one woman, with no previous business experience, earned $436,797+ in 2002 and now earns MUCH MORE than that … just by selling other people’s stuff online!
In her down-to-earth, sincere and often humorous style, Rosalind Gardner guides you through the entire process of building an affiliate marketing business on the ‘Net.
Frequently revised and updated to reflect industry changes, the Super Affiliate Handbook now consists of 236 pages and 124 screenshots that will show you step-by-step how to become a Super Affiliate. You’ll learn how to pick the best affiliate programs, negotiate a commission raise and save time, money and effort on everything from affiliate software to web hosting.
To learn exactly how she does it, Click Here.
I hope this helps.
