Posted on: 03 December, 2001

Author: Martin Avis

Not long ago, books, tapes and programs were all therage telling how easy it was to make money in ... The ads are still running, and a few people arestill reaping the rewards. Remember the guy Not long ago, books, tapes and programs were all therage telling how easy it was to make money in mailorder. The ads are still running, and a few people arestill reaping the rewards. Remember the guy makingmoney from his kitchen table, wearing only his shorts?Now the playing field has changed. Now it is theInternet that offers the lazy way to riches.Thousands of folks bought the books, and failed to getrich. The Internet will also fail to deliver theexpected riches to millions of hopefuls.But if you learn the closely-held secrets of onlinesuccess, YOU can be one of the few who profit.Well, that is what they would have you believe. Truthis, the secrets are easy to discover. So easy that Iwill tell you some of them right now. And over the nextfew issues, I will uncover all that you need to know toreally make the Internet work for you.The Internet is a 24/7, 365 day shop, just burstingwith customers. Actually, it is more like a giant Arts& Crafts fair. You've got to get the customer'sattention, while thousands of other stalls are doingthe same. Once you have attracted them, they lookat your stall. If they like what they see, you get thechance to go into sales mode. At any time theirattention can waver and you lose the customer.**************If you do catch them, and they like what they buy, andyou were polite, helpful and courteous, then next timethe fair is held, they will head straight for you.**************The Internet is exactly like that.The good news is that making money from the Internetdoesn't have to be a full time occupation. You can runa business in a few hours a day without risking yourday job. Most of the hard work can be automated, andthere are hundreds of web sites offering free or veryinexpensive software solutions for problems you don'teven know you have got.So why is it made to sound so difficult? There is a lotof technical jargon out there, and it gets in the wayof developing a clear understanding of what you need todo. Once you have progressed along the learning curve,everything gets a lot simpler, but in the initialstages, you just have to grit your teeth and readeverything you can lay your hands on. Go towww.google.com and type '"internet marketing" ebook'without the single quotes.You will be presented with dozens, if not hundreds offree or 'for sale' ebooks. Buy some. Get the free onesand read, read, read.There is no substitute for knowledge.Here is a list of 6 questions that will lead you todecide how you can start making money with your own website. It is not exhaustive: new ideas are beingdeveloped all the time, but it covers the bases: > Do you want to sell hard products or digital products? > Do you want to sell your own products, or someone else's? > Do you want to concentrate on selling one product hard, or spread over a wide range of products? > Do you want to accept payments online, or let other people deal with the money? > Do you want to capture email addresses so that you can sell to them later? > Do you want to run an affiliate program?Let's look at these one at a time.>>> Hard products, or digital products?You can probably sell anything on the Internet.However, if you are looking to run a business in yourspare time, digital information products are theeasiest to handle. Why? Simply because there is noinventory to worry about, it is all in computer fileson your hard disk. Also, the products are delivereddirectly to your customer, instantly.>>> Do you want to sell your own products, or someoneelse's?Your own products can be the most profitable. If youwrite an e-book and sell it for $25, who gets the $25?You do. All of it. Every last cent apart from a smallcommission to the credit card company. 'But I can'twrite an e-book,' you say. Sure it can be difficult ifyou have not written anything before, and you may thinkyou have nothing to say that people would pay goodmoney for. You are wrong! You do have a book insideyou. Almost everybody does.Ken Evoy's outstanding book, written with MoniqueHarris, *Make Your Knowledge Sell!*, will open youreyes and get you writing anything from a four-pagereport to a full sized book.http://www.myks.sitesell.com/products43.html>>> Do you want to concentrate on selling one producthard, or spread over a wide range of products?This is a very personal choice, and depends somewhat onthe target audience you will be aiming for and theexpected profit-per-sale. If you have a product that isfairly high ticket, aimed at a niche audience, then youare probably best off building a web site devotedentirely to promoting that product.Why waste your time diluting your efforts?If, however, your audience is broad, and/or your profitmargin is small, then by all means try to cross-sellthem other products.The choice has to be your own, but a lot of money isbeing made at the moment from single product sites.>>> Do you want to accept payments online, or let otherpeople deal with the money?If you are starting out in business and have notrading history, it will be difficult for you topersuade your bank to give you a merchant account andthe so accept credit cards online.There are ways around this, but they will cost you abigger percentage of your sale.Don't even think about asking customers to send you acheck. This is the Internet: people just won't do it.One good solution is ClickBank. If you plan to selldigitally deliverable products only, ClickBank may bethe answer. Their setup charge and commissions are low,and there are no monthly fees. Check them out at:http://zzz.clickbank.net/r/?avisc>>> Do you want to capture email addresses so that youcan sell to them later?An increasing acceptable business plan is based uponthe idea of building a customer list and then sellingto them at a later date. To make this work, your website must be capable of generating a high traffic, andmust have content that is of real value to its readers.Once you have established that, invite visitors to optin to your mailing list. This act gives you permissionto email them without risk of spamming (sending outunsolicited email, which can get you into serioustrouble with your ISP). Then you set about building arelationship with them through e-zines, newsletters,special offers, tips, recommendations, site updateannouncements and so on.It can take up to seven communications before you makea sale, so perseverance is required.**************This method is longer term, but virtually all theInternet gurus agree that it is the most effective wayof making money online.**************>>> Do you want to run an affiliate program?Affiliate programs are special relationships that youcreate with companies that sell online. You advertisetheir products and direct your visitors to their site.They do all the work of selling, taking the money anddelivering the product and you sit back and reap thecommission payments.With an affiliate program you can create a web siteoffering one, two, or a million products. Create themedsites (books, music, jewelry, art, you name it, therewill be an affiliate program for it). You can evencreate entire department stores online.And every time a customer buys a product, you will becredited with anything from 2% to 60% commission. Justwait for those checks to come rolling in!Sounds easy? It isn't. Like any marketing method on theInternet, it only works if you put in the effort. Youcan design the best looking, hardest selling storefronton the web and if nobody visits it, that is how manysales you get. Zero.Have no illusions, to make money on the Internet youhave to put in the work. Maybe not 12 hours a day,seven days a week, but in the early days you will needto devote some time to setting things up.Like anything in life, the dream is alluring. But thisdream can, with hard work and perseverance, become areality. Then maybe you can think again about that dayjob!**************"To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonelylabor, to be given a chance to create, is the meat andpotatoes of life. The money is the gravy." >>> Bette Davis (1908-1989), actress.************** Article Tags: Making Money Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com