If
you have been looking to
the internet as a way to make some extra income and you keep coming up
with
pages and pages of information, from happy internet marketers, telling
you how
much money they are making, showing you their pay cheques and telling
you what
a beautiful home you could own, the car you could be driving with the
boat at
the marina. If you are tired of all that
hype…well then you are ready to hear what
I have to say.
When
I looked around on the
internet, for something to make money doing, all I kept coming up with
was
selling someone else’s products or creating a blog and using Google
Adsense as
a way of creating and maintaining an income stream.
It
seemed to hold real
possibility for a real revenue production, so I created a Blog put some
Adsense
ads around it and then found out that you had to have more than one
blog to
really make any money so I put up five blogs with Google Adsense all
around
them.
Then
I started to make some
money…a whole .23 cents on one site and $1.60 from another site and
that was
it…nothing!!!I was placing my ads and
paying to have them on Google and Yahoo but nothing was happening except me spending my money.
Then I read another e-book
that suggested that you need to put up 300 blogs, maintaining them with
some
kind of content to attract customers and keep updating them daily so
the google
spider crawls them and keeps them high on the internet search.
Most bloggers generate income
by providing
great amounts of content daily for free and monetizing through ad
sponsorships
and programs like Google Adsense.
You can certainly continue to
blog or write
as usual, in the hope that the search traffic you attract will allow
you to
make some money through your on-site ads.
But consider this: What if you
could make a
lot more money doing what you already do (creating content),
by simply
having something to sell as well?
And what’s the coolest thing of
it all? You only
have to create content for these paying customers and no one else.
Every single
word you write or video you create has an immediate return on
investment (ROI).
This is the complete opposite
of what most
blogs do: they put up free content to
attract, to search and look for referral traffic, in the hope of
eventually
getting some ad revenue.
From an entrepreneur’s
perspective, paid
membership sites have no meaningless movements. No useless gestures. I
like the
precision involved in providing content, while knowing that you’re
getting paid
for it instantly by people who are really interested in learning and
acting
upon your content.
Self-sustaining
subscription-based revenue is
a lovely thing, isn’t it?
Google Explained…
In
case anyone doesn’t
understand what Google Adsense is here is a brief explanation:
You
make up a website with
some kind of content and surround it with Ads, from all sorts of
companies
including, but not the least, Google Adsense, then sit back and hope
that
people visiting your website will click on your ads so you can make
some money.
Oh,
by the way, you must
remember that you are the one that has to pay Google or Yahoo to
advertise your
website on their system…so you can have visitors come to your site, so
they can
click on your ads, so you can make some money.
This is also
called “Pay Per
Click”, you get paid when a visitor clicks on one of those ads, the
owner of
the website gets paid a small percentage of the cost that the
advertiser is
paying Google for each click.
Does
that sound like a great
deal?You do all the work setting up
your website, filling it with content a least 3 times a week or even
daily to
keep the Google spiders crawling your website looking for new content
so they
can rank you higher or even keep you ranked.
You work hard
to keep up the
content, making it good content that people really want to read and you
are
giving it away for free.The reason many
people are giving away their content for “free” is that many blog
writers
think, or are told, that no one pays for content anymore.Its free all over the net if you just look
for it.But most of this free stuff is
not intelligent, well put together information by someone who cares,
they are
doing it for the money of Adsense.Google
has a stranglehold on traffic and the
“do-it-yourself
monetization technique that is Adsense.
The power
that Google has
over the small independent content producer is frightening.If you can’t produce the traffic the money
stops and if you are depending on Google for your income, you are not
working
for yourself,
you are really working for Google.And if Google decides to change the rules
they can kill your business overnight, without notice or justification,
no
severance pay and you never had any benefits anyway.
I
know personally of one
content writer whose income was cut off overnight because of something
he did
or said that Google didn’t like and Google would not explain.This happens more than one would like to
think.
You
have to stop doing what
everyone else is doing and take a different path, a more profitable
path and
one that you are totally in charge of.
Affiliate Marketing…
On the other hand, some
internet marketers
prefer to create an informational product and establish themselves as
an
expert, in order to generate sales.
Instead of continually creating
content and
publishing it for free, they market paid content/products while
constantly
getting new buyers or supporters through a robust affiliate program.
This involves
promoting a
specific product or service and earning commissionswhenever the referred user makes a
purchase based on
your recommendations.
Affiliate marketing is a big
and profitable
industry that covers a wide spectrum of topics and fields. If you’ve
got an
interest in fitness, you can make money promoting fitness videos or
courses. In
terms of fashion wear, you can earn commissions by recommending friends
to
clothing or t-shirt companies with affiliate programs.
The amount of money you make
depends on what
you are selling. Done correctly, affiliate marketing is one of the most
powerful ways to make money from the web. Amazon,
Commission Junction and ClickBank, are
three of the biggest affiliate marketplaces you can use if you’re
branching out
into affiliate marketing.
Start
an Online Business…
Starting your
own online
business or company allows you to make money off the provision of
specific
services or products you may have. Some examples of popular online
trades
include web design, copywriting and internet marketing.
It isn’t difficult to start a
business. It’s
all about hiring the right people or having enough knowledge and
connections
within a specific industry. You should do some in depth research before
you
decide to settle on a specific niche for your business. Entrepreneur.com
has a good collection of tips on how to start an online business.
The Way of the Internet is
Changing…
With access to broadband
available all over the world is changing the way we do business on the
net and
you are about to be in on the cusp of that change.We are moving forward out of written content
such as PDF e-books and email based training courses into more
sophisticated
learning environments such as audio/visual distribution systems.
Multimedia
is changing the
way we perceive the information flowing over the Internet and you
should be
thinking about paid content and presenting it in different individual
formats.
It
is your content so why are
you giving it away for free.By selling
your content you can create training programs powered by interactive
learning
environments.Have your clients needing
the information you have to sell and they will bewanting more of it.
Therefore, creating a niche market or maintaining a recurring
subscription.
Once
a client purchases your
information they tend to have a higher level of commitment to you as to
the
knowledge and authority you have on the subject.Once
this decision is made they will purchase
more of your services or maintain a recurring subscription.
Let’s Talk Content…
Content
Marketing is all the
marketing that is left.
Teaching
your customers and
giving your customers the resources to believe you is “new marketing”.They become a fan of yours because you teach
them something that makes them feel better about the world.
Content
marketing is not easy
because you actually have to listen to your customers and know what
their
challenges are.You cannot solve your
marketing woes through buying advertising space.You
must make a connection to your customers,
and get new customers, by focusing on their true pain points and healing them with information.
If
you can put the
information your client is searching for in a more learner
friendly
environment you
raise the value of yourself as a teacher
and you raise
the perceived
value and the actual value of the
information.
Content
is so critical to the
success of your business and once you understand this value and respond
to your
clients needs you have leverage that free content providers do not.
When
content’s added value
can rise above the threshold where customers become willing to be
separated
from their money.This is the true
measure of a sustainable business.
How Social
Networking Fits In…
The Internet bust of 2000
showed that revenue
is what matters.“As we learned from the
first dot-com silliness, value is not in click-through or eyeballs.Value comes from revenues…
Can you sell subscriptions to
your data or
your service?Can you charge for
referrals or for purchases that result from referrals.Can you sell stuff?If not,
your revenue is zero and your market
value is zero.”
Social
Networking
technologies have emerged as the most attention-grabbing communication
media
for consumers and the hottest topic in media and marketing channels.Powered by user-generated content and
increasing consumer distrust of advertising and corporate messaging,
social
networking technologies create new channels for consumers to connect
with one
another.
There
is growing evidence to
support claims that some social networking services can be a powerful
professional ally to businesses—in particular, independent
entrepreneurs and
smaller companies, for whom each new personal connection is a
significant
business building block.
You
only have to look around
and see how some blog developers are connecting with each other, called
“linking,”
and pushing each others content and coming up with joint-venture deals.When you have something to sell you have
leverage.You don’t necessarily need
traffic, as you can always borrow someone else’s audience as long as
you offer
that person a compelling deal.Through
Social networking you have a greater change of meeting someone with the
same
ideas as you have who can help develop your project or add something,
like a
skill, that you don’t have or you don’t have time to do.
Recently,
I was doing some
research for a business proposal that requires partners.I had a few possibilities in mind, but had no
direct connections.After some online
social network research, I discovered that I was only one “degree” from
the
people I needed to talk to.The system
worked.These services aren’t magical
dust that makes money appear — but they can facilitate valuable
connections.
Social
networks are like
grease — in some cases, gasoline — for our personal business networking
machines.If you aren’t plugged in, you
will be out-done by better-connected, hyper-networked colleagues and
competitors.
If
you know how to structure
a deal that is an irresistible win-win for everyone involved, you can
make a
lot of money without committing yourself to developing insane amount of
free
content just so you can try to figure out how to make money from it
later.
Where We Are Going
In The 21st
Century…
The
most important challenge
for education leaders today is fostering 21st Century skills
and
knowledge in today’s students so they will be prepared to participate
in our
global economy.This challenge requires
that teachers understand what types of knowledge and skills are
required in
leading edge workplaces and future careers.Teachers
will also need to become adept at higher order
cognitive,
affective, and social skills such as systems thinking, creativity and
collaboration.This will require
transformation strategies for developing deeper core content, new
models of
pedagogy, (the art or science of being a teacher) and development of personal learning
networks.
Virtual
learning communities
are on way to provide the intellectual, emotional, and social support
needed
for teachers to unlearn and relearn contextually in an effort to bring
about
the needed behaviour changes necessary to make way for the next
generation of
classroom practices.
As
you can see by the above
statements we are forever evolving and changing and in today’s society
we need
to keep up on those skills.Too ever
think that once you left school, that was it, is foolish thinking if
you are
going to keep up with this ever changing world we live in.
Are
you currently blogging, publishing or
running your
own online marketing business?It is
really important that you learn to blog, because that’s where the world
is
headed.It will make you think a little
bit more – and you’ll get to be more entrepreneurial.It will help you to run your own little
private business, in some respects.But
the real market of the future is teaching your skills or knowledge,
which
applies to facts or ideas acquired by study, investigation, observation
or
experience and getting paid for it.
Internet Video…
Internet
Video is
being consumed by the bulk of the internet population.
•Broadband has made it to the bulk of
homes in
the US
and almost all
developed nations…
•More and better content has become available
online, allowing users to
find the long tail of content…
•Sites have become adept at showcasing and
promoting relevant content…
•Video has become the new medium of expression
with cheaper digital
cameras…
The potential for Video
monetization is
clearly there – just a matter of when.
The growing adoption of
broadband combined
with a dramatic push by content providers to promote online, opens the
door for
you to promote your product.
The big opportunity for you is
in repurposing
the vast amount of specialized text-based information into interactive,
multimedia learning environments that result in recurring income and
long-term
customer relationships.
Raise the perceived value of
desired
information, increase the actual value to the user by transmitting true
knowledge, and enjoy a profitable long-term relationship because your
customer
achieved the benefits of that knowledge.
You want to create a community
of
learning.Do that right, successfully
market it, and you’ll never worry about figuring out how to “market
money
online” again.
We will be providing
foundational knowledge
on all of the above plus more and take you through from stage one to
the end…
It is a fast paced arena,
especially when it
comes to the amazing new tools that allow non-technical people to
produce
dazzling content.
New information will be
provided as the
course goes along to provide you with new tips and strategies you can
use to
develop a better understanding of all facets of the next wave in
information
sales.
Teaching people how to build,
run and market
virtual learning environments now and into the future is gigantic and I
would
love to see everyone take advantage of this kind of training and become
really
wealthy from your own online learning environment.