How to make money online - a summary of my experience and study

So, I have to make a confession - I have spent ridiculous amounts of money learning about how to make money online so I never have to have a "real" job again, lol. So after a good amount of time paying for ebooks (I'm too embarrassed to say how much I've spent, so I won't, lol), reading, and observing, I do make money online, and this is what I've learned (this assumes you want a "set it and forget it" type online income - no inventory, customer service, etc.):


Start a website on a subject that people search for when they really need something - they have a problem and are looking for a solution. It needs to be rather specific. A website about "cars" is just too huge an undertaking. You've gotta drill down into a much narrower subject that has a strong following, like 50's collectors cars. You shouldn't just do "alternative health", you've gotta pick something specific, like "natural eczema treatments". It helps a lot if your domain name includes the key words your site is about.

Put up a dozen or so articles on your site addressing various aspects of your chosen subject. This is to pull people in through the search engines. Put up reviews of the products available that address the problem people are searching for. Review a few products on one page, you don't have to appear to have a preference of one over the other, just state the facts. People will trust you more if you appear objective. This also avoids you needing to know how to write any sales pitches.

Sign up for an affiliate account with all the products you are reviewing, and put your link in your reviews, so regardless of which review the person decides to go with, if they click through your page, it'll be your affiliate link. If they buy through that link, you get a commission.

Tweak your articles and reviews and submit them to free article directories like ezinearticles.com, and include a link to your website at the bottom of each article. You have to make them at least 20 to 30% different from the original so they'll actually show up in the search results. This gives you one way links to your website, and free traffic.

Articles shouldn't be more than 400-500 words or people get bored and quit reading. Use lots of paragraphs. Each Paragraph shouldn't be more than 3 or 4 sentences, otherwise people just see a huge block of text and don't bother reading it.


I'm posting this because it took me a LONG time to wade through all the crap to be able to get a "bigger picture" idea of what all these people were doing in common. You don't have to sign up for anyone's "program" or "system" in order to make money online. There are other ways of making money online that can be added into the above method, but the above summary is what I have gotten the most information on, and requires the least long term maintenance.

Thanks for sharing! You have it spot on when you mention all the online money information there is out there. People can spend years reading all this information and not know where to begin. The idea is to pick something and stick to it.

I just started something similar to what you are describing. I also write eBooks.

Using articles to market like you mentioned is a really good technique which I also reccomend.

hi Lili, great post and really interesting to me mainly because i have done something similiar in respect to spending stupid amounts of money on stupid get rich quick schemes and others. i now have a successful website business making money online and working from home. the business is totally genuine - i wouldn't want anthing less and also helps people on a weekly basis to be making money on the internet. thanks again Lili. much appreciated..........John

*grin* OK, I'm a cynical old so-&-so, but I was half expecting that OP to end with "...& if you want to find out more, you can get my ebook for a very reasonable price", or something similar.
Good post as it happens though, some sound advice in there IMHO. (I'd give kudos for it, but apparently I've used mine up for the day, which is odd since I've not used any yet *shrug*)

lol, that would be a great way to ruin the believability of the whole post wouldn't it?

Yeah, most affiliates think if they just post their affiliate link in forums or blog comments that they will start raking in cash. But the truth is you really have to have a systematic approach in place. Most people recognize an affiliate link when they see one, and are resistant to clicking on them. This is another reason why having your own website is a good thing. You can set up redirect pages on your website, so instead of your link looking like www.product-website.com/affiliate-id?=12345 you can have a weblink that looks like www.your-website.com/product-name and redirects the user to the first website address. This prevents people from cutting the affiliate ID off the weblink and getting around your commission. This is a really big problem for affiliates actually. Some estimate that up to 40% of commissions are lost through people cutting your affiliate ID off the URL.

Hi Lili Thanks very much for your post, some helpful information. Could you please maybe give us some ideas of further topics and how about some ideas on Adsense..

Keep up your great sharing it will help alot of people starting out in online marketing 8)

U mean like this https://newamericanrevolution.ws/republicmagazine.html ?
LOL.

Sorry.. couldn't resist.

lol, *that* doesn't look like a proper affiliate link
*resists the temptation to follow it*

Exactly, good job, lol

So how much is the start up with a web site , domain name, search engines . did you go with the pay per click or the AdWords or some of the other options out there ? which ones end up being cost effective and worth the money ? can a person get a reliable site with at least 95 or more guaranteed up time at a reasonable price. like less than $100.00 set up and $50.00 a month?
I haven't spent a bucketful of money simply because I don't have bucket full of money to spend , but i have spent a lot of time months years research . I have made enough with different affiliate sites to keep my ISP current and buy a soda once in a while. Everything you posted is what the different sites say should make money . A real professional looking site and the reliable servers aren't real cheap from what I have read. Since I haven't ever 'upgraded ' any of the deals I've signed into I have no first hand info just a lot of guessing and assuming. ?? just like my user mame says iwannano so I'm asking.

I use liquidweb.com, they're the only host I found with a 100% uptime guarantee. That's also the same host TFS is on. For a Vps I was paying $55 a month, but you can choose your set-up fee, anything from free to $250, the higher you set your set-up fee, the lower your monthly payment. I've recently upgraded to dedicated for about $185 a month. I love liquidweb, they're awesome.
I prefer having a Vps or dedicated over shared hosting because I can put just about as many websites as I want on one server without it costing me a penny more, so the only cost of a new website is the domain registration, usually around $8.. I always use an open-source CMS, almost always Drupal, so that's free as well. The system can be a bit confusing when you're first learning how it works, but once you understand it it's a breeze.
I havent used pay per click at all, but whether that works for you will depend on what you are promoting. Higher end items might be worth it, but I wouldn't know, most of my links are to cheap little stuff, lol. I have read that if you want to make more money you should promote higher end things, but that just doesn't happen to be where my interests lie.

HI there! I am new to this forum so I thought I would take a second to introduce myself. I've been in the sameboat as you- trying real hard to make money online. All of my adult life, I have had a passion for helping others with weight loss and nutrition. So I finally decided to join a couple of forums in order to find others who share my interests, build friendships and establish business relationships.

I was with Herbalife for 12 years and built a great business but had some integrity issues that kept me from going forward. Anyway, I've found some other alternatives online that have promise. And without a huge buy-in, which is really key.