So you’ve decided to go the extra mile and start an online business. Congrats! Now is the time to roll up your sleeves, buckle down, and get to work. But where will you start? What will you do? How will you make money?
Let’s start from the very beginning. Before you begin spending a single penny on anything related to your new business, take a look at the figures. According to Statista, there were 23.4 million American Express cardholders in the U.S. in 2018. That’s 80% of the population. If the same percentage of people are active online shoppers, there will be 230 million online shoppers in North America by next year.
With so many people online now, there’s an opportunity to reach hundreds of millions of shoppers. Keep in mind that online marketing is highly targeted and therefore, the results of your efforts will be much more noticeable. You can test this theory by taking a look at the statistics. According to HubSpot Blogs, between January and October 2018, Pinterest introduced new users to its platform every seven seconds. That’s a crazy pace! Even if you’re not a marketing expert, you can probably guess that there’s a lot of interest in your niche. Just remember that, like with any business, it takes time to see noticeable results.
The Perfect Platform
There are many different ways to make money online. Some prefer to build sites and sell affiliate products, while others want to join a micropublishing platform and write ebooks. No matter what your skills are, you can probably find a way to make money online. The key is finding the right platform. It’s important to find a place where you’ll be able to build a following and make money from the content you post. Here are a few tips to help you find the perfect platform for your needs.
Pick A Niche
The first and most important step to building a successful business is choosing the right niche. This is how you’ll find your audience, grow your community, and become a go-to source for information on your topic. To create content for your site, you’ll either need to create your own products or use affiliates to sell other people’s products. You can’t expect to make money overnight with a general-purpose blog. You need to pick a niche that you’re passionate about and can write well enough to become an expert in.
Find Your Voice
Niche selection is important, but maintaining a comfortable balance between authenticity and salesmanship is just as important. If you can’t find your voice, you’ll end up sounding like every other boring, anonymous blogger on the platform. Finding your voice is very similar to finding your niche. Once you’ve found it, you can determine how you’ll approach your topic, what you’ll write about, and the language you’ll use. Having a clear voice will allow you to build trust with your audience and make them more receptive to your sales pitch. Remember: your audience wants to trust you. So you have to earn that trust by being authentic and honest.
Avoid Scams
Unfortunately, there are a lot of scammers out there who will try to trick you into buying fake goods or joining a scammy affiliate program. Avoid these scams by simply doing your research before you commit to anything. There are plenty of legitimate ways to make money online that do not require you to spend a penny until you’ve made a sale. If you’re reading this, I assume you’re not looking for a scam. So, kudos to you! Now, let’s talk about the good stuff.
Build A Following
Even though you’ve found a way to make money online, that does not mean that you’ll automatically become a millionaire. Building a following takes time. It takes consistency. And it takes engagement. You have to engage with your audience by posting useful content frequently and connecting with others in your niche. By creating and engaging with content that is relevant to your audience, you’ll be able to grow your following and gain credibility. When you have a large enough following, you can consider using a tool like Growthoid to get more people to engage with your content. You can also use tools such as HubSpot to get more people to engage with your content through social media. When you find a tool that can help you connect with your audience, leverage it!
Grow A List
One of the best ways to make money online is to build a list of email subscribers. You can put up a simple sign up form on your site, and you’ll have access to a list of people who want to hear from you. Instead of just sending out sales pitches to your list, you can use content to engage with your audience and grow your list. One of the best, free blogs for building a list and gaining credibility is Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income. He focuses on teaching people how to create online businesses that can generate consistent income streams, and he does a fantastic job of demonstrating how he makes money online. If you’re looking for inspiration on how to grow a list and start an online business, you could do a whole lot worse than paying attention to Pat Flynn.
Make Money With Affiliate Marketing
If you’re new to the world of online marketing and business, affiliate marketing can seem like a huge, complicated mess. It’s a good idea to ignore all the noise and learn as much as you can about affiliate marketing. Once you’ve got a good handle on how it all works, you can start applying it to your own business. My suggestion is to use affiliate marketing to generate a steady income stream that you can use to invest in your blog and gear. Instead of generating occasional income, you’ll be able to rely on affiliate marketing to fund your blog. Plus, you’ll have the peace of mind that comes with knowing you’re providing a valuable service to your audience. If you’re looking for ways to make money online, you can’t go wrong with affiliate marketing.
Make Money With Product Reviews
Speaking of investing in your blog, there’s another way to make money online that you might want to consider. Instead of just writing about your topic of expertise, why not try to pitch and review products that are relevant to your niche? You can use your platform to promote products that you think will be useful to your audience. If you’ve got the eye of the public on you, the products you promote will have the chance of being discovered.
You’ve got to keep in mind that product reviews are considered to be affiliate marketing. When you create content for a living and then try to make money off other people’s products, the truth is that you’re basically doing affiliate marketing every single day. The difference is that you’ve got to keep track of what you’ve done and report on it honestly. You also need to learn to look at reviews from a buyer’s perspective. This means that you’ll have to find products that are relevant to your niche and then review them effectively. To start your affiliate marketing journey successfully, make sure you read reviews from trustworthy sources to learn about pricing, value, and quality before you get started. And when you do start earning money online, make sure you continue to learn and develop your skills. The more you know, the more you’ll be able to contribute to the world of online business.
Make Money With Surveys & Testing
If you’ve got an e-commerce store and you want to find out more about your customers, you’ve got several options. You can do so many things: take advantage of the fact that people are online now to ask them questions, play surveys and win money, or take advantage of the fact that people are online now to try out new products and share their opinions about them. One of the simplest ways to make money online is to take advantage of the fact that people are online and use survey sites to make money. Just make sure that you don’t spend more than what you’re earning. Otherwise, it’s a bad investment. To give you an idea of what kind of returns you can get from taking online surveys, Survey Junkie pays out approximately $1 to $5 per day, depending on the amount of time you spend. So if you’re looking for a way to make quick money online, take surveys regularly and expect to get paid a few dollars per day for your time.