Make Real Money Online With Davion’s Online Marketing Blog

How To Make Money Online With No List, No Product and No Budget

In my visits to money making forums, I often come across questions like “how do I make money for free”, “can anyone make any money without a list” or “is it possible to make money as an affiliate”?

There are 4 simple ways to make money online if you are starting out and do not own a list, a product and simply do not have a single penny to spend.

1. Writing Articles and Selling Them

A very straightforward method is to sell original articles. You can either use project-based communities like Elance, Scriptlance and GetaFreeLancer to find work as a writer. Project assignments go for around $3 – 10 per article written depending on your skill level and reputation.

Alternatively, you can simply write a set of articles on a hot topic like dog training, dating and so on. Then sell them as PLR articles at forums like Digital Point forum. Go to all the money making forums and promote the sale. But the trick is to price each article below $1. If you can sell a batch of 10 articles @ $10 to 20 or 30 buyers, that is $200 – 300 in your pocket. Not too bad if you can do it every day!

2. Direct Affiliate Marketing

Since you do not own a product, you can simply sign up as an affiliate in ClickBank. This is the first step. The next step is to drive tons of traffic to your link.

Direct Linking Method

Basically, what this means is you promote the affiliate link directly. You can use a signature link that points to your affiliate link and be active in forums.

Go and post at least 10 interesting posts a day in each forum. Repeat it for as many forums as possible, minimum 10 forums. By doing so, you have 100 posts scattered around and 100 chances of getting some targeted eyeballs on your signature. Be creative and make some outrageous or catchy signature like “How to Make $100 Within 2 Hours”.

You can also leave your affiliate link in blog comments as well as free classified ad sites like Craiglist, BackPage, EPage etc.

Try this and do not be surprised that you will start seeing sales streaming in. One of my readers was so thankful when he made 2 sales shortly after doing so. While that is not a lot, but for a newbie, it can be very encouraging.

But one word of advice, try not to send all the traffic directly to the sales page unless the sales page converts really well! Otherwise, it makes sense to presell your prospect first.

Presell Method

This requires more work but it works like a charm. Do a review of the product be it at Squidoo, HubPages or EzineArticles. Direct the traffic to the affiliate product (EzineArticles require a website, so why not direct the traffic to a Squidoo lens you have created?)

Reviews are known to improve conversions by many fold. I personally tested it and found in one case that it actually improved the conversion rate from 1% to 5%.

Start driving traffic to your review pages using article submission, blog comment posting and forum posting.

Anyway, these are all free to set up, so why not?

3. Blogging

Go and start a free blog at Blogger or WordPress. Pick an expensive topic like Mortgage, Debt and so on.

Start blogging and update the blog frequently.

Do not use Google Adsense immediately. I discovered that it does not help you in the search engine rankings when you slap those ads on your blog while it is still fresh and new. Google often see these new blogs with Adsense ads as trashy “made for Adsense” sites and never love them.

But that does not mean you cannot put other affiliate product banners on it.

Build it for a while, at least a month or two before you put Adsense on it and you are safe and ready to receive expensive clicks.

One important thing you need to do is to ping your blog after posting. Ping it at http://www.Pingoat.com to inform the feed directories that your blog has been updated.

Building backlinks to your blog is vital. There are many free methods like article marketing, bum marketing, blog comment posting, forum posting and link exchange.

From this method, you are monetizing your blog by earning when someone clicks through your affiliate product banners and buys the products and click on the Adsense ads.

Once your blog hits a good PR, you can even start selling text link and banner ads on your blog. Participate in Adbrite or other ad networks for more cash.

4. Sell Your Own Products

This sounds contradictory. How do you sell your own products without creating one? Well, you can always download any product and treat it as your own by participating in giveaways like:

Viral Marketing Giveaway 11 - Download Your Free Gifts Now!

The IM Giveaway – The Most Massive Giveaway With Thousands Dollars Worth Of Gifts

There are tons of free ebooks, templates and scripts with Master Resale Rights and Private Label Rights (PLR). You can simply resell them for profits.

How to set it up?

Go to one of the free web hosts that allow you to upload web pages and files.

You will be able to find a lot of free web hosting services at http://www.free-webhosts.com.

Upload the sales page, download page and report. These are included in the resale rights packages.

Create a PayPal button for your customer to pay you.

How to promote the product?

Simply apply the methods I described in 1, 2 & 3.

So, here you have 4 really simple to follow methods to make money online without a product, a list and even budget. All the above are free techniques that work!

Once you have a hang of these methods, it is time to proceed to more advanced techniques as an experienced marketer.

Posted in Article Marketing, Blogging, Forum Marketing, Free Money Making Methods, General, Giveaway Events, Online Marketing Learning | 4 Comments »

Quitting The Rat Race In An Economic Downturn

I have titled this blog post as “Quitting the Rat Race In An Economic Downturn” because of 2 reasons.

The first reason is that I have resigned from my organization after working for close to 7 years now. My last day of corporate work life is on 09 June 2008. Come next week, I will be starting my leave for an entire month.

The second reason for such a title is I am quitting at a time when the US economy is still rather slow. A lot of my income comes from the US.

Yet, what are the motivations for me to do so?

In life, there are always Pull and Push factors for every decision you make. Push factors are the ones that force you to move out of your status quo, ie where you are in your current situation. Pull factors are what drives and attracts you on the other side.

In the equation, when the Pull and the Push work hand in hand together, there is no reason for staying in status quo.

That brings me the point of preparing the Pull factors. Push factors in most circumstances are not really within our control but the Pull factors can be influenced by our choices.

3 years ago, I started to grow tired of my work. I was doing well in my career being one of the youngest in my organization (huge one with a few thousand staff) to move up the ladder to middle management and I am barely 30 years of age. Thank God for the favor. I was ahead of many of my peers. But something inside me always challenges me to do something different.

For 3 years, I went around hunting for answers and finally chanced upon internet marketing or for that matter affiliate marketing. After some hard knocks here and there, I finally figured certain things out, crafted a vision and made plans. I worked towards it and I am glad that things worked out well enough for me to quit my job and work full time on my online business.

The excitement of being able to do what I truly enjoy is immense though I do have some apprehension. The “What If”s are real. I do not deny it but my promise to myself and my wife-to-be is that I will work hard and smart and by God’s grace, I will make it!

Here are some tips for all my dear readers who are working hard to make ends meet or working for long hours but always wishing in your heart to one day quit the rat race and be your own boss:

1. Develop a Vision

A vision is bigger than a goal. Making that “1 million dollars” is not a vision but a goal. Because I have seen folks who made their first million but are still not happy. In fact, they became very lost after achieving that success and needed another goal to be injected into their lives.

A vision is bigger than yourself. Yes, a vision will challenge you to where you now cannot imagine. So what is your vision? Set up a trust fund to support the orphans in a third world nation or be the most successful Internet Marketer in the world?

2.  Craft Out Your Plans

What are your plans? You need a plan to meet your vision. Plan out your strategy. It is highly important to set tangible targets and goals that are measurable with a timeline.

If your goal is to quit your job at 40 years old, you need to know how much money you will need then. Then work backwards to where you are now. Do some reality checks.

3. Take Baby Steps

I am now mentoring one of my friends in making money online. One thing I always teach him is to make plans but take baby steps.

If your goal is to make $1000 in a month from now, break that down into 30 days and all it takes to meet the target is to make $30 a day. That does not sound as daunting, isn’t it?

Be accountable to someone who can constantly remind you to stick to your plans.

4. Make Adjustments To Your Lifestyle

I know this is painful but if you truly desire to quit the rat race and no longer have to report to work each day, then this is a pain you have to endure.

If you have to stop surfing the net to watch a movie or chat with your friends on MSN, do so. Some adjustments will go a long way in shaping good habits.

5. Learn From People

You do not have to be the best. Just second best will do. Richard Branson of Virgin is known for his uncanny abilities to mimic the success of others. In affiliate marketing, you really do not need to reinvent the wheels.

Just find someone or some strategies and techniques that work and do it. You will not know until you try.

This is why I make it a point to learn from people who have done it successfully. There is always a lesson to learn.

Well, I am done with my ramblings. Wanted to share something that I thought might be good food for thought for you.

Do share your thoughts with me. For friends who have successfully quitted the rat race, do also share your opinions and tips here. See you!

Posted in General, Online Marketing Learning | 6 Comments »