The Beginners Guide to Making Money Online

There are a number of different ways to make money online.  On this site, we will focus on earning income through a website and more particularly a blog style website.  The mission here is to create a stream of passive income through your website without using any of your own money as an investment.  In essence, I want you to make money without spending any money.

There will be some groundwork and maintenance time you will need to spend with your blog along the way, but keep in mind you will be able to earn income without working at your computer, hence the term passive income.  In fact, once you are have your website setup to be a money making machine, you will find you do not need to spend but 3 or 4 hours a week to continue to grow your revenue and keep your no cash investment.

Here are the money goals we have for you:

• Make Money While You Sleep
• Make Money At Home
• Work Less For More Pay
• Get Money Fast
• Set Up An Online Business Free

Now that we have set out our plan, let’s figure out how we’re going to execute it.

The first step to take is to ask yourself what you’re talents and interests are.  List them on a sheet of paper.  On one column write down your talents and on the other write your interests.  It is perfectly fine if you write down the same item twice.  In fact, there should be some overlap. Create a list of 15 items on each topic.  Now rank them according to their level of measure from top to bottom.  So you’re first level of you’re interest list will be what you’re most interested in.  The second item will be just below the interest level of your first and so on.  Repeat this for the talent column.

Now, we want to look at that overlapped area.  What were the highest rated items of each column that were the same.  For example, if cell phones was an item on both of your lists, look to see how high you rated it on both columns.  If you ranked it #3 on your interests and #6 on your talents then you have found a good topic.

The aim of this exercise is to find out what you will be writing about in your blog that is going to make you money.  We want you to write about an area you have knowledge, expertise, or “talent” in but also that you have a high interest level for.  A combination of these elements will skyrocket the chances you create a successful website.  The more successful the website, the more money you will make.

Of course, we also want you to make money online.  This is the whole point of everything I’m writing.  And when you make money, we want you to make a significant amount of money, not just a few dollars here and there.  So now that you have your talent and interest selected, you need to ask yourself, how lucrative is the market?  Almost all markets have the potential to make money, but some will yield a much better return on your time than others.

So as you can see, a new variable has entered into our equation leaving us with three categories to combine and compute.

Interest + Talent + Market = Your Site’s Niche

Why is this so important?  Shouldn’t I just choose what makes the most money?

Some people will tell you to simply write about the highest paying niches.  There is merit here, but the reasoning is not completely accurate if you desire to make more money.  For example, the term “Austin DWI” is said to be the top or one of the top paying keywords for pay per click (PPC) advertising.  For our purposes, we will consider Google Adsense to be our PPC campaign of choice.  While undoubtedly a click on such an ad on your site will net you more money than a click on a cell phone niche, you must also ask yourself: “How many people are actually searching for ‘Austin DWI’ ?”  Conversely, “How many people are searching for cell phones?”

The market for cell phones is absolutely huge and reaches a global proportion whereas Austin DWIs are confined to one city in the US of approximately 650,000.  Moreover, almost everyone in the U.S. has a cell phone.  How many people and Austin have a pending DWI case?

You can see the tensions that arise here.  This is why you want to consider the cost per click (CPC) of the subject matter you want to choose, but also the scope of the market.  Ultimately, you want to choose a well paying area that has a large consumer base.  Many people turn to a list of the highest paying Google Adsense keywords, but I recommend using your common sense rather than single click figures that may or may not be accurate to hone your search.  By using your common sense, I mean apply your traditional notions of what you have experienced of products and/or services that convert well into sales and of which the sales are of a high dollar amout or reoccuring cost.

Cell phones are a great example because so many people are interested in so many aspects of them and they are highly profitable for the companies that cell the phones themselves and the plans.  People search for reviews of cell phones, types of cell phones, accessories for cell phones, and the like.  You can even break down those categories to further subcategories.  For example, cell phone accessories could be tailored to include batteries, skins, apps, protectors, etc.  As you can see, there is much to be determined.

So now that you’re thinking about what niche you want to attack to start making money online, we want to decide how specific or narrowly tailored you want your blog to be.  Remember, the more narrow your niche is, the more likely you are to be an authority on the subject.  However, if we can find a larger area with smaller competition, then by all means you should go for it.  On the flip side, a broader initial base on the subject gives rise to more potential subjects.  It all depends upon the number of searches for the keywords on what you want to do.  (ie cell phones vs. cell phone reviews vs. cell phone apps)

Google Adwords Keywords Tool can help you determine how many searches per month the keywords/market you are considering targeting will get.  This will be a large reflection of your traffic potential so we don’t want any searches that are listed too small such as 500-800 searches a month because your site simply won’t retrieve that many viewers.  The reason being that first of all, the numbers are inflated on the Adwords Keywords Tool (I know this from personal experience) and secondly, you won’t get all the traffic from every search each month.  This is likely true even if you were in the top 3 results of Google.

Now that you are beginning to understand why the topic of your website is so important, brainstorm and evaluate the three categories we have talked about.  If you have questions, feel free to send me an email.  In our next segment, I will discuss how to get a website for free and the beginning stages of setting that website up.