Entries Tagged 'Tips' ↓

This is part two of a question and answer session I am doing with myself. Look at yesterdays post for questions 1-5. Here are questions 6-10.

6. Why am I keeping my new project a secret?

I think I have already addressed this in my previous two posts. I don’t want any competition and I don’t want to influence the result. Beyond this, I want to prove to myself that I can actually build a successful Internet business from scratch not based on PPC.

However, just because I am keeping the overall project a secret does not mean that I won’t post updates on how its doing. Moreover, I plan to tell you about which tools I am using and how well they are working for me.

Nonetheless, for the time being I do not plan to reveal any specifics about my project any time in the future.

7. What things stand in my way?

My main obstacle in this new project, as with all my projects in the past, will be me. I am going to have to overcome some of my laziness and my tendency to procrastinate. To help me I have outsourced some of the work (I will explain more in a future post).

At the end of the day though, I will still have to put in a fairly substantial amount of work to get the kind of results I want. It is going to be a long term project, so it is going to require a sustained effort, something I am terrible at.

I will post updates on my progress here as well as my setbacks in terms of both laziness and procrastination.

8. What are my goals?

Obviously, I want my new project to be a success. For me that means that I would like to have net earnings of $10,000 US a month or more. If you read yesterdays post you will see that this is substantially higher than my current income.

I plan on saving the vast majority of this extra income and investing it. Ultimately, I hope this will give me total financial freedom. This will only be achieved, if I continue to live somewhat frugally. What really matters in terms of long term financial success is not how much you earn but how much you keep (both savings and investments).
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As I am sure you can tell yesterday’s post was the first in a long time. However, reading it again I felt that it was not as clear as I would have liked it to be. The overall tone was correct but I think it could have been a bit more straightforward.

So, today and tomorrow I am asking and answering a total of 10 questions to myself. Hopefully you will find them interesting but if not, they should at least serve as an outline to where I am coming from and where I hope to go in the future in terms of my own Internet business.

1. Do I make enough money online, to live on?

The short answer is yes I do. However, as you will see below, many people will probably think that I what I earn would be enough for them.

2. So how much money do I make?

This varies a fair bit from month to month but recently my net monthly online income has been between $1,600 US and $3,200 US. Both my revenue and expenses can change dramatically from month to month so there is not as much stability as I would like.

However, that being said, my non-Internet related expenses are usually less than $1,000 a month (including rent, food, booze etc.). So even in bad months I am able to save some money. I live very frugally, but that is not to say I would not be happy earning more money. I will elaborate more on this point tomorrow.

I am sure many people reading this, think $1,600 US a month is too little to live on; but the fact is that I can work (almost) whenever and wherever I want. This independence for me is the most important thing for me at this stage of my life. If I had a family this arrangement would probably have to change, or I would have to start earning more.

3. How many hours a week do I work?

Again this varies widely from week to week depending on what I want to get done and what needs to get done. For example, last week I took a short trip and I think I probably only worked about 5 hours. And to be honest I never work more than about 30 hours a week due to my laziness.
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In some of my previous posts I have written about how you can use affiliate programs to generate money from your website. However, I never elaborated on what things you should be looking for before you join an affiliate program. So today I give you ‘What to Look For In a Good Affiliate Program.’

An affiliate programs can take may shapes and forms. At their most basic level they simply offer a percentage of the purchase price of a certain product. For example, Amazon.com currently runs one of the largest and oldest affiliate programs on the Internet. They simply pay you a small percentage (10% or less) for every book, movie, computer game, etc. that someone buys as a result of coming through your link.

Other affiliate programs will pay you just for a lead, which means you don’t have to sell anything at all to make money. This can include programs for loan applications, newsletter subscriptions or anything else where a sale is not made right away. Finally, some affiliate programs will even pay per click (similar to Google AdSesne) but this has become quite rare due to click-fraud.

Now that you have a basic idea of the different commission types available, lets look at what features a good affiliate program should have. Most affiliate programs will not have all of these things but you can judge how good an affiliate program is by how many of them it does have.

1. Fits With Your Site

The first thing you need to look for in an affiliate program is one that is appropriate for your site. For example if I have a site on the topic of traveling to Japan, I might want to include affiliate programs for hotels, airlines and Japanese language products. Other products like web hosting, Internet marking or financial services probably won’t work.

So, pick programs that fit your sites theme.

2. High Commissions

The next thing you want to look for are programs that pay you a high percentage of the sale price or a large amount per sale or lead. Remember these should fit with the theme of your site, but if you have multiple programs to choose from, it is usually better to pick the one that pays you more (kinda of a no-brainer there).

Some examples of these types of programs include ClickBank and PayDotCom products, some Commission Junction programs, Site Build It, Joe Bucks Health Supplements, Forex Affiliate and many dating sites.

Making sales can be difficult so you want to make sure that each one brings you a maximum amount of revenue.

3. Merchant Site Converts Well

This is just as important as a high commission rate. There is no point sending your visitors to a merchant’s affiliate site if you can’t make any sales. Overall, you want to find affiliate programs that have high commissions and convert well. Your sites theme will determine how well a given affiliate program works for you.

Generally, I only choose programs from merchants whose affiliate sites are ones I would personally buy from.

4. Lifetime Commissions

This is something I love to find in an affiliate program. With these types of programs all you have to do is sell once, and then you keep earning in the future. When you send someone to the merchant’s affiliate site they become your customer for life. So, if they come back in 10 years and buy something you would still be credited.

Life commission programs work best with programs that have monthly or yearly recurring commissions. These are some that I personally have had had some success with: Site Build It, DealDotCom, Joe Bucks, Forex Affiliate, Dating Sites, PayDotCom and ClickBank.

Selling once and getting paid over and over again makes earning a living online that much easier.

5. 2-Tier or Multi-tier

Many programs offer to give you a small amount of the earning of other affiliates you refer. When it is simply off people you refer directly, it is called a 2-tier program and when you earn money of people your affiliates refer, it is called multi-tier. To me this is far less important that the other factors I listed above, but is still a nice bonus.

I have found that many of the affiliates who join these types of programs focus more on signing up other affiliates rather than selling the product. If the product/service does not fit your site then there is no point signing up for it. That being said, if an affiliate program does fit your site, it is nice to earn a little bit extra off other people who may join. Some good affiliate programs that are also two tier are: Site Build It, DealDotCom, Joe Bucks, Dating Sites and Forex Affiliate.

Remember, 2-Tier only makes sense if the actual product being sold fits with your site.

6. Support

This is something else that can very important to people new to affiliate programs. Ideally you want an affiliate program that offers you ongoing support to help you make sales. This varies greatly from program to program and most times I find you have to join the program (almost always free) before you know for sure. Overall, I have found that affiliate program mangers are realizing that it is in their best interest to offer ongoing support.

Probably the affiliate program with the best affiliate support I have found so far is Site Build It. Many smaller run programs also offer good support, because their affiliate relationships are so important to their business.

However, one affiliate network that I strongly advise you to stay away from is rocket profit. A few months ago they banned my account without warning and refused to reopen it. This is despite the fact that it was a tiny infraction, which could have been solved very easily on my end. I got paid in the end but this is a perfect example of the wrong kind of support.

If you have questions make sure you ask. If they are not answered promptly you should ask yourself, if this is a company I want to do business with.

7. Payment

Finally, you want to join affiliate programs that pay you on time, every time. Occasionally, you will find yourself in a situation where a merchant fails to pay but this is exceedingly rare. I would guess that over 99% of merchants pay when they are supposed to. If you are worried about this, then I urge you to join a big affiliate network like ClickBank or Commission Junction because they handle all payment issues. Every affiliate program I have mentioned today has also paid me on time.

Keep these things in mind when you look at affiliate programs and you will make more money with less hassle than most new website owners. To find affiliate programs specifically for your niche I recommend the following resources:

AssociatePrograms.com – The biggest directory of affiliate programs on the internet.
LifeTimeCommissions.com – The largest directory of affiliate programs that pay you for life.

If you want to have a successful Internet business you have to mange your time effectively. You have to set aside time to devote exclusively to your business and not to other pursuits. It can be very easy when starting an online business to get side-tracked (I know I certainly do from time to time) by other things on the Internet. But your aim should be to keep these distractions to a minimum.

I have found that there are three keys for my own time management success. I don’t know if these will work for you but at least they should get you thinking.

1. Set a clear goals and write them down

I do this in two ways. First, when I start a new project I write down exactly what it is I want to get accomplished from this project. Second, I take the main goal and break it down into smaller daily goals and create a to do list.

For example, say I want to create a new website about golf. My main goal is to build a site with 50 pages of content which make me $10/day profit. My daily goals could be writing 5 pages of new content or getting 5 new links pointed to my site. The key is to break down big tasks and make them simple.

2. Make ‘business only’ time

I work from home so it can be very easy to get distracted by other household chores that need to be done. However, it is important that you have ‘business only’ time, which means you only work on your business during this time period. Essentially, you are treating the time like you would if you are at work, which is how successful entrepreneurs approach their businesses.

3. Do something you like

Now not everybody can do what they love and still make money. Moreover, some things you have to do as an Internet business owner will be less fun than others. The key though is to focus most of your efforts on things you like or prefer doing rather than those you don’t. That way working on your Internet business will not seem like work at all.

OK so those are my personal ideas. But you should probably stop reading them and get back to work.

Setting financial goals or more simply answering the question ‘how much money do I want to make from my Internet business?’ is the most important thing for most new business owners. These goals can be from the very humble (a couple hundred extra dollars a month), to the extremely ambitious (a billion dollars or more).

However, the process to reaching any goal is essentially the same. Basically, all you have to do is follow these four steps and you can grow your business to whatever size you want or need.

1. Set your initial financial targets

Your initial financial target should be some amount less than what you would ultimately like to earn but think you can reasonably reach in a couple of months. For example if my ultimate goal was to earn $500 a month I would set an initial target of making $50 a month. Obviously, the larger your final goal the larger your initial goal should be.

2. Identify what you need to do to reach that target

Once you have an initial goal you need to figure what you need to do to reach it. This can vary from selling a certain number of products a month to writing a certain number of webpages for a content based website. Again, this should be something you can reasonably expect to do in a month or two. See How do I start an Internet Business for more business ideas you could start from home.

3. Do what needs to be done

This may seem like a no-brainer but it is why 99% of people fail to reach their online business goals. If you are like me you love to plan for things but don’t like doing the actual hard work. However, you have to do the work yourself (or pay someone else to do it) otherwise it won’t get done at all.

4. Repeat

Once you have reached your initial financial goal repeat steps 1-3 above, setting a higher goal each time, until you reach your ultimate financial goal.

Thus, the answer to How much money do you want to make is really up to you. It is actually very simple to do if you plan out how you are going to do it and set aside time to get the work done. Then it is simply a matter of repeating what worked and applying it over and over again. This is the process by which almost all companies and businesses grow. So, make it work for you!