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Friday, September 5, 2008

Two money making ideas, or how to make more money

Everybody wants to make money¸ everybody is selling something, or joining the next best affiliate program, or talking social media, or Internet marketing. So the question now is, how do I weed out what works and what does not?

I sent a note to my FaceBook group about a business opportunity, which by the way, has the potential of making tons of money, and immediately, I received four affiliate offers on my inbox.

There are a lot of people that will graciously give you tips ant try to help you by telling you that their program is the best; and you know what? They might be right; and then, they might not. I am convinced that a majority of those who send you their promotions are: trying to make money, and not trying to swindle you.

Here is the bottom line. You want to make money online? The best two ways of doing it are:

1. Affiliate marketing. You either sell your own product, or, if you are not that good at writing, public speaking, or just talking for the sake of talking, sell someone else’s stuff. Nothing wrong with that, as long as it is a good product.

2. Provide content, and sell advertising.

I prefer the second way of making money. It allows me to express my many opinions, help others by answering honestly, and frees me to find the next best thing.

I can tell you that I have being called “a great teacher”, twenty two years of Army experience, teaching everything from survival, to how to read a map, and lately, cultural awareness, tend to make you good at what you do; and when you spend as much time as I have teaching, and some of the things that you teach, if you teach it incorrectly, can cost someone’s life, you better take it seriously. A blog is hardly that exciting, but again, if you are going to teach, is best if you have something to teach.

You can create a blog, like this one, or why not, an e-zine. But, if you are like me, you get bored with articles that are designed to just sell you stuff. So, the first and best tip that I have for you is to respect your readers enough to let them know when you are selling something.

I have read dozens of free books on how to write copy, or sales letters. I don’t know who came up with those names. To me, copy is what you make on a copy machine, and copyright is what you apply for and pay so nobody plagiarizes you. But, it annoys me beyond belief when I see sales letters with testimonies, some of them legit, some out of someone’s mind (read between the lines on this one), trying to tell me that if I do not jump now and buy whatever it is, I will be missing the opportunity.

So, the bottom line again, respect your reader, and provide them with something useful, like CONTENT.

It is ok to place ads on your blog. Just look to the left of this article and you will see ads; or read between the articles, and you see more ads intended to have you click on them. I make money when you do. And, if Google is reading this, please note that I have not asked readers to click on them.

So, spend some time often enough, researching your topics, so you can provide useful and up to date info to your readers.

Read many blogs, and make yourself useful. What do I mean by that? Contribute to their readers by commenting on their articles. Make it a legitimate contribution. Share your ideas. Become a regular. Once you have done this, email the blog creators, maybe they will be willing to add a back link to your blog. Back links will help you gain “authority”. The search engines will see that as a sign that you actually know what you are talking about. Your ranking will improve. Make sure that you understand that they, the bloggers, are not obligated to place your link on their blogs. It is not personal, it is just business.

And, of course, make sure that you grow your list of contacts, and potential customers.

This takes time. Be patient. Rome was not built in a day.

It is called social media for a reason; you need to cultivate friendships. The more friends you make, the more possible customers you get.

We talked about content, research, back links, and your list. If you follow these tips, you will make money, eventually.

Let me know what you think. I am always open to new ideas, and contributions.

3 comments:

Leslie Williams said...

Very good blog. Liked what you had to say about providing content. It does take hard work and paying attention, but it's so worth the effort.

Leslie

Rick Brown said...

Joe, nice post. One of the key elements that people tend to forget -

"It is called social media for a reason; you need to cultivate friendships."

Even many of the bigger social networking communities are filled with self-proclaimed gurus that will only cultivate a friendship if you buy their product.

Thanks for the post and continued success.

Cheers!
Rick
www.BrownmobMarketing.wordpress.com

Diane Geisel Reiki Master, formerly MyGemStoneBox by Diane said...

It takes time and effort to build a place that visitors want to come back to and to begin to cultivate friendships!

Great post.

Best,
D
http://mygemstonebox.blogspot.com