Image via WikipediaI started my computer consulting business back in 1987 and at that time I had no idea what the internet was let alone what it would become. But when internet access came to our city you can bet I was one of the first online in our area. It’s become a huge part of my life both entertainment and business wise.

Learning how to take your offline business online is not a difficult task. It’s not very expensive either. A big bonus is going to be the fact you can add a website address to your business card. Oh yeah, then there is the opportunity to make money online.

If you’ve been considering bringing your business online here are a few basic tips to help you get started.

Get Your Business Website Created And Online

In order to get a website online you will need the following:

1. A Domain Name – www.yourbusinessname.com

Domain names are very inexpensive. For as little as $7-$9 per year, you can purchase your domain name at various places online. You would of course try to get a domain name that suits your business.

I use www.GoDaddy.com for purchasing my domains. I have had no problems with GoDaddy and I can use my PayPal account directly from within GoDaddy. I like the prices and convenience.

Example: www.webmannmarketing.com where the business name is Webmann Marketing

2. A Hosting Account

Just like in the real world you need a location for your business, even if it’s in your garage your domain name needs to have a place to live online. This is how your site will be able to appear online 24/7/356.

You can purchase hosting for your site for as little as $20 per year, depending on what you will need for it. A quick search online for “website hosting” will reveal hundreds of options, so be sure to research each one and find the best for your business. I personally use HostGator.com as do my clients and I will add that we have had no complaints.

3. Website Building Software or Web Designer

Depending on your knowledge of HTML, you can either build your site on your own or you can hire someone to do it for you. The cost of this depends on many factors, including what all you will need, whether you will do the work or pay someone else to do it, and your level of expertise with coding and building/maintaining websites. However, there are low-cost website builders that make creating your own website a piece of cake. You can find these online by searching for the term website builder.

4. Payment Acceptance Options

This step will take a bit of planning and research, but a good starting point is to use PayPal to accept payments. For a low fee you can accept payments right from your website via credit cards and more. Visit https://www.paypal.com for more information.

Your next steps will include planning and researching your market as things may change a bit now that you are dealing with potential customers from all over the world, marketing your products or services, advertising methods and more. These are just the basics of what it takes to get your business online, but you will be well on your way once you have these options taken care of.

The best way I have found to share my thoughts and actually make money online is create a blog where you can share your thoughts. And just on the chance that you have been living under a rock for the past few years let me explain what a blog is.

A blog, also called a web log, is a platform that will allow you to post your thoughts on just about any subject that you can think of. So your blog can be used for journaling, promoting, writing, and publishing, anything that your heart desires.

As a beginner there are a few things you can learn that will make your marketing work for you instead of just being work.

I spent my first 4 or 5 years online creating static websites that were tough to get good amounts of targeted traffic to but then I learned about blogging and everything changed.

Blog marketing is pretty easy if you have a marketing mind or are willing to learn.

I have noticed that a lot of people use blogging as their diary and a means to share their thoughts with other like minded people. Quite often these type of people are not into blogging to make money online.

Journaling is a great way to learn about blogging and the best way is to just do it. Get started today, not tomorrow, because tomorrow never comes, does it.

Blogging on a free service is, well free…

I started blogging on a free service, blogger.com, but after some time decided it was better to have full control over my blogs and moved to my own domains for blogging. Although for the learning process free is great and won’t cost you so much to learn the blogging ropes. No domain cost or hosting cost.

I love having my own domains when I create a blog.

The fact that I can modify my blogs as much as I want and having a unique blog is much better than having a template that looks like a hundred other blogs.

I also like to say what is on my mind and I don’t want a free service to tell me what I can and cannot say, not that I would say bad things but I like to say it as it is.

So, when you have your own blog on your own domain(URL), you are in charge of the content that is posted on it. You can decide what is said, and what is not. You are after all writing it all, right? So, the sky is the limit. Whether you want a blog that does website reviews and takes nominations, or you want to sell things that you make out of your home, the choice is yours.

Using your blog as a platform to get the word out about ‘whatever you want too’ is a great way to market and promote something to make more money online.

Don’t make blog marketing any tougher than it needs to be.

Don’t get in the mindset of getting rich over night. Instead get into blogging for the long haul and build content that readers will want to read and come back for more. That is when you will make money online.

I started with one blog that started making a few cents a day. That was a bit discouraging but the next month I was making more and each month after that. Then I started another blog based on another hobby I love to talk about and guess what, it started making a few cents a day for the first month and again it grew the next month and the next.

You have probably heard ‘rinse and repeat’, well that works great. Get one blog going at a time and then move on to your next but don’t let yourself get overwhelmed. I have been there too but why take the fun out of earning money from blogging by stressing out too much.

Each step you do teaches you more and more. Putting what you learn into action is where you zoom ahead of other marketers that are still dreaming of income.
Blog marketing is a great thing to learn. If you can sell things from a blog, you can sell them anywhere. Making money by using a blog is one of the most satisfying things that you will ever learn how to do. Just do not expect to make money over night, know that you have to work at it consistently everyday, and remember to put into it what you want to get out of it.

So you have finally deciding to create a blog so you can make money online. Well not to dash your hopes and dreams but you’re going to find that it isn’t quite that easy but it certainly is doable. Now let me tell you how so you don’t have to feel around in the dark wondering if you’re on the right track.

1. Pick A Niche That You Are Passionate About

The reason I say to pick a niche you are passionate about is so that you don’t get started blogging and get bored or run out of things to blog about.

When I first started blogging I wanted a lot of blogs thinking that I could make a bit of money from each one and the total would be impressive. Well I quickly was overwhelmed and on most of my new blogs I just ran out of things to talk about so they slowly dropped of the map and I gave up on them.

Of course it’s all a learning process but get you can avoid a lot of the aggravation by learning from others and just not doing the things that don’t work well.

2. Choose a Blog Template Your Readers Can Read

Nothing will turn your potential readers away faster than an ugly blog that is hard to read. When I land on a page that has poor color combinations making the text hard to read I get a headache. Knowing this I just leave before the pain begins.

Alright maybe they don’t give me a headache but because there is so much great content already on the net I don’t have a problem leaving an ugly site to find one more pleasing on the eyes.

3. Match Your Advertising to Your Content

I can’t believe the number of blogs I see in the run of a week that are advertising everything but what they are blogging about and then wondering why they don’t have subscribers or money in their pockets. If you are blogging about fishing don’t try to sell your readers on hang-gliding or knitting.

4. Share Information Your Readers Will Benefit From

I’ll admit I am not the best writer but I love learning and I am will to spend the time it takes to learn more about the topics I discuss on my various blogs. I read a lot of blog posts in the course of my day which give me ideas that will benefit my readers.

I also like to share links with my readers. If I read a post that helps me or that I know will benefit my readers I share that link.

5. Participate in Your Market

I have found it much better to read other’s blogs and comment on them, get yourself out there. As you read other blogs you will learn new things that can make your blogging better.

Get involved in related blogs by commenting with more than ‘great post’. Take the time to read the post before you comment and then make a comment that is related to the actual post and don’t just try and leave a link back to your own site. This will only set you farther apart from those blog owners. Get involved.

Try to have fun with your blog and make it enjoyable for your readers and they will return to see what else you have to say. Make sure you have a RSS feed subscription option in plain site above the fold so people can subscribe.

Email marketing isn’t as easy as it used to be, unless you are using iContact. Today you can send out emails that just don’t get to where they are suppose to which is in front of your subscribers.

iContact is the best option out there for anyone who wants to send out email newsletters.

iContat has:

• great inbox deliverability
• an extremely easy to use interface
• great prices that start at $9.95 per month
• lots of templates

iContact is an easy to use email marketing, surveying, autoresponder, and blogging tool that allows small businesses, non-profits, and associations to easily communicate online with their customers, prospects, and members.

iContact is affordable for just about everyone starting at $9.95 per month and scales upward based on list size. They also have an Enterprise product for larger organizations that starts at $660/month.

iContact has an easy to use interface and over 300 professionally-designed email templates. The application allows you to track the opens and clickthroughs on your emails, add a sign-up form to your web site, segment your list, and manage your subscribers.

Very important to me: They take care of managing bounces and unsubscribes for you. They also take care of making sure your message gets to the inbox of your recipients through their ISP relations, feedback loops, and whitelist status. If you are currently running into deliverability issues with your existing newsletter sending method, iContact will be very helpful and ensure inbox delivery of your messages.

The company currently has over 15,000 customers and 100,000 users. The product is used primarily by small businesses but also has a number of Fortune 500 companies like Bank of America, Ford, Nissan, Super 8 Motel, and International Paper, and political campaigns like Barack Obama ‘08. The company is based in Durham, NC and was founded by Ryan Allis and Aaron Houghton in 2003.

iContact is working to change the way businesses and non-profit organizations communicate online by making it really easy to manage all online communications from a single web application.

If you are looking for any easy and inexpensive way to put your emarketing on autopilot and get great deliverability, check out iContact.

An overview video is at http://icontact.com/www/video/introduction_video.html.

You can try a 15 day free trial of iContact at www.icontact.com.

Having an affiliate program gives the freedom to concentrate more on the development of products or services and less on the sales aspect.  That doesn’t mean that an affiliate sales force will run itself.  You will need to provide them with the things they need to succeed.  You will need to be available to affiliates when they need you.

That doesn’t mean waiting by the phone or checking emails 24 hours a day. Take the time to address the concerns of your affiliates and help them with any problems they may have.  While some problems need to be dealt with on a one-on-one basis, there are some things that will help answer questions before they are even asked.

Frequently Asked Questions

One of the simplest ways to address common concerns of affiliates is to set up a Frequently Asked Questions page, or FAQ.  When you’re starting out you could address questions that you might have if you were joining your own affiliate program.  As you start adding affiliates and they begin to ask their own questions add them to your FAQ.

It will be easier for affiliates to navigate FAQ if it is divided up into logical sections.  Have a section on acceptable promotional methods, one on payment terms, one on how to use links and other tools and so on.  If you end up with a lot of questions move each topic to its own page.

Blogs and Podcasts

Blogging and podcasting are two popular ways to provide information in an easy-to-digest manner.  Blogging provides information in writing, while podcasts cater to those who learn better by listening.  You could do either or both for your affiliates.

Cover anything of interest to affiliates in a blog or podcast.  Answer questions received that might pertain to a large number of your affiliates.  Discuss news that affects the affiliate marketing world in general.  Also discuss promotional techniques that affiliates might not have been aware of.

Question and Answer Sessions

Question and answer sessions give the opportunity to address multiple questions in a short period of time.  They give affiliates the chance to ask their own questions and learn from the questions of others.  They provide an opportunity to get to know one another.

Q&A sessions can be held in a number of ways.  Have them in an online chat room.  Hold a conference call.  Maybe have an online seminar with questions received by email or instant message.

These methods give a way to answer affiliate questions and address concerns before they are voiced.  It is still important to make yourself available to your affiliates on an individual basis.  Providing them with full contact information will allow them to contact you in the way that they are most comfortable wit. It will let them know that you value their hard work enough to be there when they need you.

Here’s the big question when starting an affiliate program. How and where do you find and recruit quality affiliates?

1. Affiliate networks. If and when you join an affiliate network your program is often promoted on their site. At a minimum your program is categorized and described so potentially interested affiliates can explore the program and what is offered. Then they make a decision for themselves. Affiliate networks can be a very powerful tool in recruiting and managing an affiliate marketing program.

2. Online forums. Forums are an excellent place to network period. They give the opportunity to help others solve their problems as well as an opportunity to have your own questions answered. A signature when joining a forum enables you to promote website’s products or services. Use it to promote your affiliate program too. Other members of the forum have similar interests so you’re a step ahead of the game.

3. Satisfied customers. Satisfied customers are excellent word of mouth and an excellent marketing tool. They already love your products or services! In regular communications with satisfied customers offer them affiliate marketing opportunities or simple referral programs.

4. Get listed in affiliate program directories. Affiliate marketers looking for products or services to sell utilize affiliate program directories. They can be a great way to reach a broad number of affiliates. People looking to become affiliate marketers often begin with these directories. New affiliate marketers can be a great source of income because they are eager and enthusiastic to make money.

5. Post your affiliate program on your website. If you have an affiliate program, why not list it on the website? Include a link to your affiliate program right on that home page. Anyone visiting your site to make a purchase or to research products or services will also be able to explore opportunities to make money.

An affiliate program is a great way to sell products.  It enlists others to do the legwork while giving you the time and freedom to concentrate on making the product better or expanding offerings.  It is important to remember that affiliates’ success is your success.

Giving affiliates the tools they need to succeed is of utmost importance.  A skilled affiliate could bring in large numbers of sales and leads but only if they have the information and support needed to do so.  Here are some things that can help your affiliates succeed.

* Get creative – Creative is simply a fancy name for the graphics, links and other tools provide for your affiliates to use.  Offering a variety of these things for affiliates to choose from allows them to promote products and services in a way that works for them.  Some affiliates may prefer text links while others like graphics better.

* Give them numbers that they can use – Affiliates like to know how well they are performing.  Most affiliate software provides a way for them to check their stats, including percentage of clicks that result in sales, average sale per click and so on.  Making sure they know how to use these features is important.

* Provide content – Affiliates usually sell through their websites or email newsletters.  In order to have a successful website or newsletter they need quality content.  Providing articles for them to use gives them that content while promoting offerings.

* Encourage affiliates to write their own articles – Article marketing is a great way to get an affiliate’s links on the websites of others.  They can write articles that incorporate their links and submit them to article directories for other webmasters to use.

* Have meetings – If you are running an affiliate program online, it is unlikely that you would get a large turnout by having an in-person affiliate meeting.  Hold online chats, conference calls, or online seminars.  These give the opportunity to connect with and motivate your affiliates.  They also give the affiliates a chance to ask questions and share any concerns they may have.

* Keep in touch – It’s important keeping in contact with your affiliates.  An affiliate newsletter could feature success stories, upcoming promotions, incentives and new creative that affiliates can use.  Most affiliates belong to more than one program so keeping yours fresh in their minds and making participation as easy as possible is essential.

* Keep your door open – Many affiliate programs lack easy access to management.  Being the one that provides that could set you apart from the rest.  Don’t have time to answer individual questions and concerns, hire a virtual assistant to help.  This will let affiliates know that their success is important to you and that you value their input.

Keeping affiliates informed and giving them tools to enhance their sales may take up some time but it will pay off in the form of increased sales.  Helping affiliates succeed is as beneficial to you as it is to them.

I work from home and have been working online since 2001 and at that time I had never heard of Paypal and expected to be paying a lot of money to accept credit cards online. I thought I would make money online and give most of it up to pay for online credit card processing, but that never happened either.

Accepting payment via credit cards is a plus when it comes to selling online. It’s convenient for your customers and actually opens the door for more people to purchase from you. As a matter of fact, some people will not buy products or pay for services online unless the seller offers the credit card payment option. So, how do you go about getting your site set up to accept credit card payments via Paypal’s Website Payments Standard option?

As a huge player in the online money exchange market, PayPal allows your customers to pay for your products or services via a credit card under the following conditions.

1. You must have an account set up with PayPal.
2. Your account must be a business or premier account.
3. You must sign up for the Website Payment Standard option within your PayPal account.
There are also other options for those who currently have a merchant account or other shopping cart. You can find out more about these by clicking the Merchant tab inside your PayPal account.

Here’s what you get when you choose the Website Payment Standard Option for accepting payments.

- Ability to accept the following payment types.
Credit Cards (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover)
Bank Transfers
Online payments from PayPal accounts

- Buy Now Buttons
- Accept Donations
- Accept Subscription Payments
- Ability to accept credit card payments via telephone, fax or in person (there is a $20 monthly fee for this option)
- No set up or monthly fees
- Free PayPal shopping cart and the ability to set up your own shopping cart, should you already have one.

Other things to note:

Your customer does not have to have a PayPal account in order to pay you this way.

You will be charged a per transaction rate determined by the amount of the purchase.

To actually set up the Website Payments Standard option, follow the steps below.

1 – Login to your PayPal account.
2 – Click the Merchant Services tab.
3. Click the learn more link under the PayPal Website Payments Standard Option.
4. Once you’ve read through all the details and decided this is the option you would like to use, follow the links to sign up!
5. Once you’ve signed up it’s simply a matter of pasting some HTML code onto your site!

So, once you have a Paypal account you can work from home and make money online without the headache involved in credit card processing. Take action today and start earning tomorrow, or maybe even today.

In Make Money Online Tip #1 I suggested that anyone wanting to create a blog to make money online should think about blogging about their hobbies rather than taking on internet marketing.

Oh, you didn’t read tip #1… Here is a link to Create a blog to make money online tip #1.

You have a niche, it’s a hobby but don’t go with it just yet. Be sure you do keyword research or you are just hoping it will be a successful money making blog. How to Choose the Right Keywords for Your Website When You Want To Make Money Online.

Now on to tip #2 on creating a blog to make money online.

Don’t Try Getting Money From Your Readers Before You Gain Credibility.

I have seen so many new bloggers concentrate on making money before they pay attention to getting and keeping readers. It’s like having a sale and drawing people to your store before you have any inventory. Lots of advertising and no content so people walk in and turn around and walk out, perhaps never to return.

Instead of plastering ads all over you site give your readers something to read. Give them a reason to stick around and even more important give them a reason to tell others about you. Do you think they will tell others to go see your site if it is only advertising? I somehow don’t think that will happen, so pay attention to content and in no time you will have readers.

When Should I Put Advertising On My Blog?

Alright on this point I don’t have an exact number here. I think that you need enough content on your blog and enough traffic each day so you can check out your stats to see what interests your reader the most. At this point you will have a idea of what they want.

Once you have established a readership of more than 100 unique visitors a day you can add advertising a little at a time. Don’t go wild with advertising over night, it just seems to turn people off and away. Always focus on what will keep your readers coming back.

When I create a new blog I wait until I have enough readers on a regular basis and then I start to ad Bidvertiser Adblock to the top of my page or the top of each post. It’s a gentle form of advertising and gives your readers options if they don’t find exactly what they came for.

Using Bidvertiser ads is a great way to make money online with your blog without making your site look like a billboard of ads. Be sure you set your adblocks to look like part of your site. If your site color scheme is blue and you have adblocks that are green or red they will stick out like a sore thumb and turn your readers off.

On the other hand if you choose colors that match your color scheme your ads look like they belong and are actually a part of your blog. When your readers see the matching ads they don’t turn their eyes away from the ads and have no problem clicking them for more information.

There are many ways to make money online but rather than confuse you with information overload I would like to share 4 powerful ways that you can earn over and over again with a little hard work. So straight to the point then…

Make Money Online Method #1 is Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing has so much income potential yet so few make money online using this method. The main reason for the lack of success with affiliate marketing is target group focus. Know your target group so you can direct your affiliate promotions in the right direction. You can’t hit a target if you are facing the wrong way, can you?

This give the marketer that opportunity to spread the word about a product or service they like. My students didn’t make any money from me when they advertised but as an affiliate marketer you certainly can make money as you get paid commission for either referring people, guiding people to an affiliate website where they will be converted to a sale.

This certainly beats the need to create your own product to sell when you are still in the learning process.

Make Money Online Method #2 is Resell Rights

Resell rights has been one of my favorite methods for making money. I have been making money online reselling ebooks that helped me to earn more to people that need to learn how to earn money online. I have been earning this way since 2002 and I don’t see it stopping any time soon.

Using reseller rights will allow you to resell info products and keep 100% of what you earn. This is far better than the commissions you will earn as an affiliate marketer but it does require a bit more work.

Make Money Online Method #3 is Selling Your Own Information Product

If you have a skill others want or need to learn you can make an information product that will help you make money online. Your product doesn’t need to fancy or have a hundred pages or more either. Just make it accurate and to the point. When I read to learn I don’t want a bunch of filler that just makes the product bigger. I have other ways to waste my time.

This is one best ways of making money online.

Not only can you make great money online with your own product but you can offer resell rights and have others making money from your product. You can even start your own affiliate program on a site like Commission Junction and create an affiliate sales force that will be a win-win situation for you and your affiliates.

Make Money Online Method #4 is Start a Mailing List

I am sure you have heard that the money is in the list. I am on many lists and I have a list or two of my own that help me make more money online.

The combination of your mailing list and your credibility will allow you to sell to your subscribers over and over. The trust you build with your readers will make them open to your endorsement for products and joint ventures. They will even pay to advertise in your newsletter as long as you stay on target.