How to Make Money Online

You see and hear that a lot. Do a search with that exact phrase and see how many results you get. It will boggle your mind. Also do a video search using the same phrase and you will be astounded at how many videos there are on YouTube under that same or similar phrase.

So you want to make money online? You may have thought often about it. You ‘hate the job you are in’, ‘can’t stand the boss’, or need some ‘passive income’ and want to ‘make money while you sleep’. All of these are the kinds of things you read about and are promoted vigorously when you start to investigate the many and varied ways on how to make money online.

Money can be made online, and there are a few who are making lots of it. But there are a great many times those numbers who are not. Unless you are a big company you are most likely to be an individual looking and hoping to find a way to generate an income online. For the sake of this argument let’s stick to individual marketers and eliminate the big companies.

It is true that there is an almost unlimited potential for individuals to make money on the Internet if they work smart and work hard. If you are serious, in it for the ‘long haul’, and happen to be a novice and know next to nothing about it, it is not going to be easy unless you are really lucky. But it can be done.

You must learn the following skills, work hard at perfecting them, and persevere until you make it, and – it is going to cost you some start-up capital. Don’t believe all the hype about how to make millions without it – you have to spend money to make money.

The first thing you are going to have to learn is website development. You must have a fast computer to start, so you are not slowed down while you learn, and when you finally pick up web mastering skills.

There are lots of web development products on the market, but there is only one great product that has almost all the bases covered – Adobe Dreamweaver. It syncs with the other essential Adobe products designed for the webmaster – Photoshop, Flash, etc.

The second thing you must learn is what product or products you want to market online. Some online marketers go in the direction of an online mall and market a large variety of products. Others on the other hand swear by niche – spoken like quiche – the egg dish, for it is a French word; and not ‘nitch’, like switch – although many do say it the wrong way in the USA. Niche marketing is where you narrow it down to just one product in one particular field. This allows you to focus your efforts and reduce your spending on advertising. And, it shortens your frustration period before you have your first success at online income.

The third thing you must learn is how to write articles. Lots of them! And, how to market them to the e-zine sites, especially the better ones. Be aware that each e-zine site has their own particular standards and unique ways of submitting articles. Start with the most popular sites first. Why article marketing? Article marketing is a must because the Internet and the search engine’s are ‘word driven’. Articles draw the search engines attention and ultimately the attention of potential buyers. This is called traffic, and traffic + conversions = sales, and that means money for you!

The fourth thing you must learn is S.E.O or Search Engine Optimization. Without this knowledge you are dead in the water of the ‘big pond’ we call the Internet. In fact, the first three things spoken of earlier in this piece are also part of the S.E.O. formula. There are many nuances but the main thing in S.E.O. is keywords and key phrases, so learn as much as you can about them – and become an expert, because as already mentioned the search engines are ‘word driven’. They are the gatekeepers, and if you don’t please their algorithmic mathematical formulas they use they won’t direct people through the gates of their search engines to your website and ultimately to a sale.

The fifth thing you must know is Video Production. There are great videos, good videos, and lots and lots of bad videos out there on the World Wide Web. Just go to YouTube and see for yourself. To make good videos you need to invest in good equipment like a high definition camera, and not just a web cam. Invest in professional editing software or your production values are going to look cheap. You don’t have to be a Hollywood producer to do good video, but don’t present yourself as cheap, or a joker, or you will drive people away from your website.

The sixth thing you must learn is Video S.E.O. This is an emerging opportunity, a fresh field of knowledge, and the sky is the limit if you learn it well. Every day there are more video hosting sites popping up on the web. Take advantage of as many as you can, but always go with the big boys like YouTube and Yahoo Video, as your first choices. Learning how to optimize your keywords or phrases to your video will get you high page ranking fast. There are other secrets that work also, which hopefully you will discover as you learn, and some of them are essential and still kept somewhat hush-hush right now.

The seventh thing you must learn is Social Marketing or as it is also called ‘social networking’. There are lots of sites on the net that cater to this area, and they are great tools that you must learn to use, like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, related blogs, forums, and so many more that you will literally go crazy as you try to keep up with them all!

The eighth and final thing you must learn is Time Management. I say final, only for this article, as the subjects in this article are, and never will be fully examined – as they are forever evolving. Time management is a must! You must dedicate yourself to the task if you want to get to that place of ‘passive income’. Passive income can only come from sustained and ‘active effort’. If you are not prepared to sacrifice TV time and other recreations you may enjoy, you will not succeed. For it requires great focus and concentration to research and gather information, assimilate and understand it, develop the skills that come from this effort, and then to apply them all again and again, constantly tweaking them, until the money starts to flow into your account.

This is when you will begin to see how it all starts to come together like a tapestry. You are the Weaver of the tapestry. Become a master weaver and when the tapestry is finished you will step back and look at a picture of a gold mine!