When I began researching how to make a living with an online business, I was so excited. I began looking into all the different ways to make money by blogging, affiliate marketing etc. But it didn’t take long to discover that there is A LOT of junk out there and I had a hard time deciphering what was legit and what wasn’t. Maybe this has this happened to you as well.
The truth is, there are lots of legitimate ways to make money online and I’m excited to talk about them today! I need to be honest, however, and mention that if you are reading this in the hopes you’ll find a way to get rich overnight…you can leave now. Programs like that don’t exist – and I hope you didn’t have to find that out the hard way!
WATCH OUT FOR SCAMS!
Too many people have lost their hard earned money to “get rich quick” scams, MLM, ponzi schemes etc. Others have promised you that you’ll make ” $1000 a day with my new system,” or similar verbiage. STAY AWAY FROM THESE! They are not real regardless of how good they sound.
To make money on the internet, it takes hard work – period! But really, you can start making money in a few months with persistence. It may not be much at first…but as your website starts to gain more and more traffic, you will start making more and more money. After a year, you’ll start seeing more money…and it keeps growing exponentially over time. After a couple of year, you can be doing very well…as long as you are working consistently…Keep reading and I’ll fill you in!
When I first started researching ways to make money online, I was simply overwhelmed by the amount of information out there. It’s hard to know where to begin.
So for this article, I wanted to focus on the more conventional (but lucrative) ways to make money with an online business. And I can assure you these are legitimate!
I’m talking about affiliate marketing and blogging in particular. I’ll outline these methods below – take a look and YOU decide if these methods will work for you.
I can tell you from my own personal experience that these methods work! If done right, you’ll be able to quit your job and make a GOOD living from it. See the program I use here.
(This site contains affiliate links – it’s how I make a living. But I’m really hoping you have a great experience here and learn something new!)
Affiliate Marketing
The definition of affiliate marketing in Wikipedia is “a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts”. (Wikipedia)
So in a nutshell, you:
1) Build a website.
2) Promote or advertise products on your site
3) Visitors come to your site and purchase something.
4) You get a commission.
Of course this is an oversimplification, but it shows the general process that occurs in affiliate marketing. You can promote either digital or physical products (or both) on your website. It really depends on what type of website you have. Below is an explanation of both digital and physical products:
Physical Products: Tangible products like you see in a store and sold on sites like Amazon, Ebay, and more.
Digital Products: Can be ebooks, digital photos, software, tickets. Any digital item that can be purchased online and delivered immediately via the internet.
A couple popular examples of companies that have thousands of physical and digital products to promote are Commission Junction and Amazon, although there are hundreds of other affiliate program options out there too!
Blogging
Blogging is similar to Affiliate marketing and you’ll often see the two terms interchanged. However, blogging is about writing informative content and encouraging visitor engagement through the use of comments. If you consistently write more content, you’ll start getting more visitors to your site and build a larger following.
So an example of this would be…this article! You are reading a blog post – and I am hoping to provide quality information that you can use!
You can make money from your blog by collecting emails from your readers and recommending products to them, linking to affiliate products, product reviews, posting ads on your site from Google Adsense, to name just a few.
For example, with Google Adsense, when people visit your site and click on the ad, you earn a commission – they don’t even need to buy anything! The amount earned is meager, often a few cents per click, but depending on the quality of your website, you can earn up to a dollar or more per click.
So if you get hundreds or thousands of visitors a month (or day!), those earnings can really add up! And this is only ONE way…there are so many more ways to monetize your site.
This entire site is dedicated to showing people different ways of becoming self employed in both the online and “offline” realms. I write more specifically about blogging and affiliate marketing here.
The Killer Combo of Affiliate Marketing and Blogging
What many people do to make money online is by using a combination of blogging and affiliate marketing. This can be accomplished by building a website, writing interesting content for people to read, and linking to popular products that relate to the topic you’re writing about. If they buy a product you’ve linked to or reviewed, you get a commission.
So where do I find the information to teach me how to do this?
A google search will bring up an unending amount of information on the best affiliate marketing and blogging resources, and there are many out there that are good! I’m going to show you the one that I use because I feel it’s the most comprehensive in that it has both website hosting and a training platform which teaches you how to make money in affiliate marketing, how to make your website grow, and how to tap into the power of the internet.
When I started this, I knew NOTHING of building a website or how to make money from it. I tried to gather as much information from the web as I could and started writing a free blog. I put Adsense ads on my site and away I went. I managed to make some money…but not enough to justify keeping it going. I simply didn’t know what else I could do to make more money so I gave it up.
Fast forward a few years and I again had the itch to become self employed…this time I vowed I was going to make this work! But I didn’t want to go it alone – I wanted some help…and after some research, I found it.
It’s called Wealthy Affiliate and it’s what I use to learn about blogging and affiliate marketing. It’s also teaching me how to make my business grow! And I’m not alone – there are nearly 900,000 members who are also using this platform to grow their business!
It’s a community of like minded entrepreneurs who are also out there to try to make a GREAT living online. If this sounds interesting to you, you can check it out for free – no strings attached.
So How Do I Get Started?
1) Build Your Website
Don’t be scared! Many people think they need to know all there is to know about building a website but that is not always the case, depending on the program you choose. There are free website templates out there and they use the WordPress platform and, best of all, you don’t need to know how to write code – It’s all done for you! I’m thankful for this since, to this day, I don’t know anything about HTML code.
BUT you must pick a topic to write about. You can write about anything, but it makes sense to write about what you know and love to get started – this could include your favorite hobbies, jobs, interests etc. The sky’s the limit here.
If you don’t already have a website name in mind, try to think of one. Then just type it into the box below to see if it’s available. It’s through Site Rubux, and they have provided problem free service for me and countless others for years. They have hundreds of gorgeous templates to choose from. After you’ve made your selection, it’s time to start adding your content! Take a look here to see if your site name is available:
If you like what you see here, they offer you TWO FREE websites to get started, no strings attached!
2) Write Your Content
This is the fun part, although it can be confusing at first. What’s great about SiteRubix is that they work in tandem with Wealthy Affiliate, so you get awesome hosting AND a platform that teaches you how to use it…how cool is that!
Writing content involves picking out keywords relevant to your topic or “niche,” and then writing about in an article.
So, for example, in this article I’m focusing on is based on the keyword phrase, “how to make a living with an online business.” I researched the topic, and am writing about my own experiences.
And this process can be done in ANY topic that interests you. Whether it’s losing weight, car repair, web design, knitting etc. there is a full time living to be made, even in only one niche! The training at Wealthy Affiliate teaches you how to do all of this.
3) Keep Writing New Articles Consistently (2-3 per week or more) To Grow Your Site
By doing this, you’ll continue to grow your site and earn more trust in the search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. And as you gain trust, your website will continue to move up in the rankings. Eventually, you can make page 1 ranking on google and others and this is when you’ll receive the most traffic and, in turn, more chance at earning affiliate commissions.
Final Thoughts
I hope I’ve been able to provide some useful information on making a living with an online business. If you’re interested in learning more about making a living online or other self employment options, feel free to check out the rest of my site. I discuss different ways to become self employed, either online or in more conventional ways.
Thanks for stopping by. Please leave a comment below if you’ve ever tried affiliate marketing or blogging or simply have questions about it. We can learn a lot from each other!
Hello there! I’m a college student and I’ve been looking for a part time job online for a while now. I heard affiliate marketing before and they said that it gave a lot of money. I wanted to try it but I’m scared that I might get scammed by it. I know that there’s a lot of scams online. Luckily, I found your article. It is very informative and helpful. I think that this is the perfect way for me to start earning money online. Thank you for sharing this and hope that I’ll get successful with it.
Hi John – I’m glad you’ve found some useful information! I agree there are a lot of scams out there which is really unfortunate and I’m glad you can spot them. I wish you the best of luck John!