Want to make money?
Have access to the internet?
Great! Then you have everything you need.
It really is that simple to make big bucks. As long as you have internet access, then you have a connection to pretty much everyone on the planet. What’s more is that you’ll have the tools you need to create amazing products (digital and physical) as well as services that can help you automate your work and accomplish much more with less time and effort.
If that all sounds complicated, the even better news is that it’s not. Earning money online is actually very simple, using largely the same business models used in the “real world.” The difference is that a lot of the hard work is done for you by other people.
Perhaps the only area of confusion, is the fact that there is such a sheer range of different ways to generate income online. This is great news in that it means you can find a method that appeals to your sensibilities. But it’s also bad news because it means you may not know where to start or how to break in.
That’s where this post comes in. Read on and we’ll explore the myriad ways you can make money with the internet! AND how you can avoid the mistakes made by so many other people.
Creating a Blog , Brand, and Scalable Business
Too many people set out to try and change the world with their online business models. It seems that everyone wants to be the next Mark Zuckerberg, or the next Steve Jobs. They all have ambitious plans for apps that will get thousands of downloads, or social networks that will become a part of everyday life.
And they should be applauded. There’s certainly nothing wrong with a little ambition!
But if you’re planning on making money online. If your main goal is to improve your lifestyle and to enjoy financial freedom and security… then you’re barking up the wrong tree.
For every Mark Zuckerberg and every Bill Gates, for every ‘Flappy Birds’ and every ‘SnapChat’, there are hundreds of thousands of businesses that fall flat on their faces as soon as they exit the gates. These are the businesses and the stories that you never hear about
There are just too many stories like this to report on.
It’s not news.
Creating a new tool that takes off to this kind of extent is just unfortunately an up-hill struggle. You need an idea first of all. Then you need to spend years working on it. Then you need to invest lots of cash…
Then you need to be incredibly lucky, so that your app will get the exposure it needs at just the right time…
The odds are massively against you.
So How Do You Make Money Online?
So with that said, how do you go about making money online?
The answer is simple: don’t break the mold!
In fact, the best strategy is to find the business models that work – and that have worked countless times before – and then to simply replicate them over and over again.
This is the same online as it is in the real world.
There are thousands of companies starting every day that will be highly successful offering construction work, cutting hair, running restaurants and doing countless ‘tried and tested’ models. There are relatively very few businesses launching that will be successful by providing something completely new.
So what’s the equivalent ‘tried and tested’ business model when it comes to the web?
Simple:
- Running blogs
- Running websites
- Affiliate marketing
- Freelancing
- Etc.
These are business models that have worked time and time again. All you need to do is take the exact same approach and apply it with your own spin.
Will you be the next Bill Gates?
No.
Will you be able to make a lot of money, working hours that you dictate and doing something that you love?
Yes indeed!
And if you really want to be the next Mark Zuckerberg, then how about creating a working online business model and gaining some experience first. Then you can use a successful blog or email marketing campaign to springboard your bigger business plans.
But most people won’t need to. Most people will LOVE making money from home writing about their hobbies.
If your goal is to live a certain type of lifestyle, why make life more difficult for yourself?
The Two Approaches
Instead of trying to break the mold then, focus on following established business models and patterns.
There are essentially two main approaches when it comes to making money on the web. The first approach is to make something that you can sell for money and to sell direct to the customer. You can this way build a very quick and simple online business that generates money – though the scalability will be less.
The other is to focus on building a brand. And that’s what REALLY allows for you to create a large-scale business that keeps growing and earning more money. The real question is whether you want to make money quickly with a side hustle, or whether you want to build a big online business that will bring you fame and riches! We’ll tackle both here.
Four Steps to Making a Profitable Blog and Brand
Here are the four steps you need to understand to make
Step #1 Pick an Interest
Step one is simply to pick an interest. This should be a hobby or something else that makes you feel excited and motivated.
You might pick martial arts, you might pick basketball, or you might pick gardening…
Step #2 Build Your Website
Next you need a website. This is going to be much easier to build than you probably expect but it’s absolutely crucial to proceedings. This will act as the platform from which you can publish your blogs and build your audience and it will also be where you’ll be doing your monetization – whether that means publishing ads or selling products.
Step #3 Attract Visitors
Obviously, this plan will fall flat on its face unless you actually get some people reading your site! That’s why the next stage is to attract visitors and you’ll do this through a number of methods including SEO, content marketing and social media marketing.
Step #4 Earn Revenue
All that’s left is to monetize. This is again easier than it sounds. There are tons of ready-made systems and plugins that you can use to create and sell your own products, to publish ads, or to sell affiliate products and earn a commission.
Choose the one that best suits your niche and your current number of visitors and you’re ready to start maximizing your income!
How to Be Successful
The key to getting this to work for you is the same as it is in any business: it’s to know how to read the market, to understand the psychology of buyers, and to be consistent and provide great value and quality.
THIS is another place where so many businesses go wrong starting out. They want a quick win. They cheat to get to the top of Google. They hire writers to generate their content. And they create a generic website.
There is no passion.
Consider all of the blogs and brands that you visit regularly. What will almost always come across, is that the people running it care about their brand. They don’t use spam content to try and trick Google. And they aren’t generic.
It’s by creating genuinely good content for a long time, then sharing it to social media, that you will develop a big following. That following needs to not only be loyal to your brand, but also invested in what you have to say.
THIS is what then gives you the clout as an influencer to monetize in a number of ways. You can now sell your own products, you can place ads on your site, or you can strike up sponsorship deals with big brands.
Then what is to stop you from designing your own product and creating branded items? What is to stop you from getting a TV deal? What is to stop you from opening up more websites and becoming a media mogul? From hiring writers and content creators and becoming a big news site?
But having a strong brand of your own that people follow for information and entertainment is how you start out.
You are focussing on delivering quality on a regular basis such that you can build up a big audience FIRST. You worry about how to make money from that audience later.
The downside to this business model is that it can take years until you see any progress. It also requires that you learn about SEO, that you learn to create high quality websites, videos, and photos. And that you are a good writer with something you are knowledgeable about you can share and teach.
For more about how all this works and how to do it right make sure to check out our other post on building a blog and making money from it.
How to Generate Money Quickly
The trick then? That is to generate money quickly. There are countless much simpler online business models that don’t require any set-up or investment. That means you can get them live and start generating profit. Meanwhile, you’ll be able to spend your time working on your main brand.
This is a strategy called bootstrapping. You are using smaller income streams in order to fund your other activities.
Here are just some of the easier ways to earn money quickly online:
Sell a Service
This could mean that you work as a writer, as a web developer, as a programmer, or even as a video editor. There are plenty of options.
Simply find a place to sell your services – such as freelancing websites – and then deliver the work on time. You’ll get paid through PayPal and with luck, you could be earning your first pay check within 24 hours.
Of course, you can also offer B2C services (business to consumer). A great example of this might be to offer Transformational Life Coaching. You can promote this on social media, or on forums, and then simply charge people for consultations on Skype or Zoom.
Sell a Product
Likewise, selling products is an easy way to make money online. This could mean that you sell a product you create (such as a craft), it could mean that you sell a digital product, or it could mean that you sell a product that you buy wholesale from a manufacturer. You could even sell an affiliate product, which means you’ll earn commission on each sale (and never have to actually build the product yourself).
The key here, is to use a pre-established “distribution platform.” That means selling through an online store where people already buy that kind of product: such as Amazon, such as Kindle, such as the Google Play Store, such as eBay, such as Etsy…
The reason this is important, is that until you have built your own audience, you won’t have any other way to get people to look at your content. On Amazon (or similar) you can have your products show up in searches, and that way gain lots of sales without having to do much promotion.
The key here is to think in terms of search engine optimization: what keyphrases can you use that will allow you products to be easily discovered by people?
Likewise, consider fulfilment and storage. This is why digital products can be useful, as can using services like Amazon FBA. Check out our post on how to make money from Amazon.
Other Options
There are countless other options too. You can sell stock photography through stock photography sites like Shutterstock Media for example. Or you can sell an app!
The key is to find ways to generate money quick, and with minimal time investment from yourself. From there, you can then use that income to spend more time working on your own brand.
And once that takes off, the sky is truly the limit.
