While I do not profess to be making tons of money online (Well, not at the moment at least! ), I do know quite a fair bit when it comes to making some decent amount of money online. That is why I always got a lot of questions and surprise looks from friends whenever I told them I’m making a bit of passive income off the internet. And one of the regular questions that I often get is “How to Make Money Online for Beginners”

While I happy to share with them the details of making money online, it started to dawn on me that instead of having to explain each and every time I have a gathering, why not get it down into writing and post it on my blog for them to read. Come to think of it, it could be a good way to drive traffic and at the same time explain to friends and others how to make money online if they are beginners.

Before I move on, I have to make a disclaimer here. While I have success in making decent money online, the same success may not applies to you even if you follow and even go beyond all the steps that I did. The degree of your success in making money online is dependent on a number of factors such as your dedication, hard word, mentality, attitude and many other factors which only you yourself have control over. In simple terms, you are responsible for your own success. Sounds good right!

In this post, I will not go into the exact specifics of how to make money online for beginners. As there are many methods and hybrids methods of making money online, there is virtually no one guide that can provide a clear blueprint to making money online covering all these money making methods. Also, a post of that nature even if I attempt to do it will be at the very least at least a couple of hundreds of pages and more suited for an ebook than a blog post or article and not to mention at least a couple of years to boot. Rather this post will be a sort of overview and steps plus reference to other posts to get you started on the right track to making money online.

Read and understand what “Making money online” is all about
Read through my whole blog. Rather than going through the archives first, I suggest you to go through the “Make Money Online Basics” section first. Pay particular attention to the” Ways To Make Money Online” section. Inside this section, you will find information on a number of methods that people make money online. Take a mental note on those method or methods that appeal to you. Once you have finished, proceed to the rest of the posts on my blog.

Decide on a money making model or money making models
At this point, you may feel confuse and overload with information on how to make money online. This is a very normal situation that will happen to everyone especially mere mortals like you and me. Don’t panic, remember the part on making a mental note on which money making methods that appeal to you. This will come in handy now. Reread the money making methods that appeal the most to you. Also reread related posts on these money making methods. Once you have digested and understand how a money making method or methods works, it is time to proceed to the next stage

Take stock of yourself
This is a very important process which I called “evaluation stage” which is basically to understand whether you are ready to start making money online. I have listed below a few questions that you must answer truthfully to yourself.

1. How much money do you want to make?
2. Are you willing to sacrifice your precious free time to work hard on making money online?
3. Are you willing to learn the fundamentals of making money online?
4. Are you able to withstand the temptations of other make money online opportunities?
5. Are you willing to keep on learning and learning about new stuff to keep ahead of your competition?

Basically, these few questions above are to give you an idea that you should treat this as a business rather than a part time job or hobby. While most of you may not have the ambition to make a 5 or 6 figure income online, most of you will definitely want to at the very least be able to make a full time income out of your online endeavors. You should note that the amount of money that you will be able to make online will be equivalent to the amount of effort and time you put into your online endeavors. This is a universal theory that applies to life, in simpler terms you reap what you sows.

You should also write down your goal and get ready a step by step plan to achieve your goal. If you are really serious, go one step further and create a business plan for your online business. Revise your goals, step by step plan and business plan periodically to see what areas you are falling behind.

More reading and learning
Alright, once you are mentally prepared and ready, you should read and find out more about the money making methods that you are going to start with. Be it affiliate marketing, blogging or making money off Google Adsense, you have to lap up as much information as possible. Look up my “Reviews” section to check out those courses, ebooks, programs, software and tools that will greatly help you in your quest to make money online.

Market research
Once you have settled on a money making model or models, the next step you have to do is to decide on a niche to go into. This is where market research comes in. The purpose of doing market research is to determine whether a particular segment of a particular industry is lucrative enough to go into. At the same thing as a beginner, it is not advisable to go into a highly competitive niche as it will become very discouraging if you do not get some results soon enough. Read up my post on “Where to look for profitable niches” to find out some of the best sites to do market research and find profitable niches.

Preparing and getting ready to make money online
Once you decide on a niche to enter, you should be ready to get started on making money online. Most money making methods requires you to have your own web hosting and domain name. If you have not yet get your own hosting and domain, you can check out my “Recommended Resources” section to find a suitable domain registrar and “Web Hosting Reviews” section to find a most suitable web host. Once you got your domain name and web hosting, it is time to put into action the things that you have learnt.

For example, if you are interested in blogging, set up a WordPress blog and learn how to utilize the full power of WordPress. Learn how to write quality content that draw in traffic like bees to honey. Learn as much thing as possible about your chosen niche. You have to undertake the responsibility of learning as much about your niche as possible and become sort of an expert or authority and also the technicalities of setting up a blog or website.

Learn about SEO and how to drive traffic
This is where keyword research comes in and you will also need to learn about search engine optimization (SEO) and the on page and off page factors (link building) that affects your site’s ranking in the search engines. Search engine optimization (SEO) is all about organic traffic and you also need to learn other forms of marketing and methods such as article marketing, PPC marketing, social media marketing and viral marketing, etc.

In other words, you need to find out what are the quickest and best ways to drive traffic for your site. For example, if your niche is in a highly competitive market, it is going to take you ages to see results through SEO provided if you can wait. The best way to generate traffic and if you have the dough and experience is though PPC marketing. However, please note that PPC marketing is not for the inexperience or meek.

Test and track your results
To optimize your results and maximize your profits, you have to learn how to test and track your results. With results from your testing and tracking, you can make appropriate changes as and when necessary to see increased traffic and conversions resulting in more profits. For example, you can through Google Analytics find out what are your best performing keywords that you can further optimize to increase your traffic and conversion levels. There are also other types of traffic or conversion tracking programs that you can utilize to test and track your results. Another good free website testing and optimization tool is Website Optimizer from Google. This tool basically lets you test and track your web content to see which content delivers a higher conversion rate, ideal for landing pages.

Automate and outsource your online business activities
When you find that you cannot cope with the demands of your online activities, it is time to consider automating and outsourcing part of your online activities to free up more time for you to market and build your online business. Invest part of your income online on good software and tools. One good example will be automating your social bookmarking activities through the use of social bookmarking software such as Auto Social Poster, Bookmarking Demon and RSS Bookmarker.

As for outsourcing, one good example will be content creation. Engage freelance ghostwriters to write articles or even create full products for you if you don’t have the time or do not like the ideal of writing your own content. Automating and outsourcing can also apply to beginners in the beginning although I feel it is necessary to go through the basics manually first to get a first hand understanding of how things work at the most basic levels.

Some stuff to consider
It is important for you to understand that “focus” is a very important point to remember. A lot of people struggle to make money online because they fail to focus on one money making opportunity at a time. Instead, those who struggled or failed to make money online often flirt from one opportunity to another. This is one of the gravest mistakes one can make online. Read up my posts on “Focus On One Money Making Model At A Time” and “Focus is the Key To Making Money Online” to reinforce the need to focus on one thing at a time or one project at a time.

As the internet is ever changing, you must be flexible and always be prepare to incorporate new technologies and try out new stuff to increase your bottom line. Learn to change track if things do not go your way that you have plan initially. There is no shame in changing directions or failing. Just take it that you have discover one more method that does not work.

If everything else fails, go back to basics. Alright, I got this phrase from CSI but then this is a great piece of advice that you should follow. Sometimes, we tend to complicate things so much that it makes things not only difficult for us but also for our traffic or customers. Keep things simple is the way to go!

Well, I think this is it! I hope this will be a good enough starting guide for those of you who are keen to learn more about making money online. For those of you, who after reading this and is still confuse and unsure of what to do, you can email me at admin @ profitablepoint.com with your questions and concerns. I will be glad to help out as long as you understand that I have a full time job plus my online businesses to attend to and may not be able to reply to you as quickly as you would like.

Article marketing is a type of online advertising methods favors by many webmasters and affiliate marketers. Article marketing refers to the use of short articles to market your products and services. It is also a very effective way to drive targeted traffic to your websites or offers. Many successful webmasters and affiliate marketers use articles to great effect in promoting their websites and offers

If you are new to article marketing, there are certain key factors that you need to understand in order to ensure your article marketing campaigns are a success.

Submit to the top article directories
Knowing which article directories to submit to is very crucial to your article marketing campaign. There are many article directories around, however, only the top 10 to 20article directories are able to give you the type of traffic that you want. Unless you are looking at building links, submitting to the top few article directories will do. Remember the 80/20 rule. The same thing apples here, 80% of your traffic will only come from the top 20% of article directories. So it pays to focus your attention on the top few sites.

Write original and quality articles
If you are going to use articles to promote and market your products and services, it is very important for you to provide original and good quality articles. As article marketing is a good way to establish yourself as an authority and expert in your niche, it will not do you any good if you are using PLR content or even worse content from other people. Poorly written articles are definitely out of the question too. If you are not able to write well, then outsourcing is one option that you should consider. If you really need to use PLR content, make sure you rewrite them.

Have a good attention grabbing title
The first thing that grabs a person’s attention is the title of the article. That is why your articles’ titles need to be as attractive as possible. For example, compare this title “How To Make Money Online” to “How To Make Money Online In 30 Days Or Less”. Definitely the second title will look more attractive to readers who are looking for ways to make money online. You need to spend as much time crafting a good title as writing your an article.

Write a good bio or resource box
Original and good quality articles with good titles will not be good enough if you do not have a good call to action resource box or bio. You need to inform readers that you have more good content waiting for them at their site or even a free report or ebook. By writing a good bio or resource box, you can see your click through and traffic increase a couple of times.

While there are some non believers on the overall effectiveness of article marketing, there is no denying that article marketing remains an integral part of any serious webmasters and affiliate marketers overall marketing strategies. The degree of effectiveness would depend a lot on the quality of the articles submitted and also the niches that you are base in. If you are struggling to drive traffic to your websites and offers, you should really consider implementing article marketing into your marketing plans.