Online For Business Or Fun?

Online For Business Or Fun?
By Peter Damien Ryan

I wanted both a business and one that is fun – even despite that there would be some hard work to do. So, as part of my learning curve (my background is psych, not IT).

I built a fun website with SBI. They did all the techie stuff and I just chose how I wanted it to look – clicked a button and then added my content in special blocks and then clicked away – well that is a bit too simple – but it was dead easy is my point as SBI is SO good with guidelines and support. (more detail is on my website)

Anyway, I got the site up – about my favourite subject: Books – and at the same time learned more and more how the internet works and what works on it. I have even progressed to basic html and Dreamweaver to make my own pages. AND, I am starting to build more sites purely for income – having explored what is good and what is not!

But what SBI really got me going was their point that a good website can also be monetised – that is can be a business while you have fun.

So you need a website that is hosted with a good domain name. SBI helps with that or does it for you.

So amateurs CAN do this – relatively easily and inexpensively. Go to my website and explore it and read pages like “Other Stuff” and see my journey in this online business.

If you choose an offer that gives you free or cheap multiple sites, remember you have to know FTP, HTML or use an editor like Dreamweaver and then get a domain name and host.

Alternatively, you can set up a blog – the best is WordPress or Blogger from Google.

There is a FREE report “Your First 100 Dollars” on my site which talks about setting up your WordPress or Blogger blog.

Content

Content is KING! It is the key to have the search engines find and LIKE your site.

The content must be valuable, preferably original – or your perspective on the subject.It must benefit the visitor – and not be BS, rubbish or plagiarized.

Keep adding valuable and useful content consistently – your visitors will be happy and regard you as reliable and will return to your blog or site in the future. AND the search engines will love you.

They are also more likely to recommend it to others.

The more you obtain this – the better the traffic will be – and that’s essential!

Traffic – Your Lifeblood

People need to know you exist. Driving traffic to your site – takes time and effort, but there are many resources and ways to do this.

Time is needed for a successful site – time for the search engines to find you, time to build and add content and so on – it is not an overnight proposition.

There are a number of ways to drive traffic to your blog:

• write articles and submit them to article directories like EzineArticles and there heaps more, though Ezine is very user friendly and free!
• if you have some budget, you can use PPC (pay-per-click) advertising like Google AdWords
• social bookmark your blog’s content on sites such as Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, and Digg
• participate in 1 or 2 forum discussions related to your niche
• trackback to other high profile bloggers’ posts from your posts
• comment on other blogs in the same niche

Monetising your Site

If you are one of a beginner, like me, I would recommend to you that the most straightforward and simplest way to make money online is through ads marketing or ads monetization.

Ads marketing or Ads monetization simply means that you earn money by selling advertising space to advertisers.

As simple and straightforward as that! The only caveat is that you should be getting reasonable traffic BEFORE you put in AdSense. A great guide for AdSense is Steve Weber – contact me via my site for his details – cheap and tons of info without the BS or hard sell.

So DON’T attempt to monetize straight off! Establish your creds and get traffic running first. Be patient.

You can also monetise by selling advertising space directly without the help of third party vendors by putting up your own “Advertise here” page on your blog or website. If you have a local business site you can sell local business add space straight away on your site – but offer it cheaply until your traffic builds up.

Traditional newspapers and magazines, which have been around for ages, make money by selling advertising space.

In the online world of Internet Marketing, it is practically the same. You can make money by selling advertising space on your website.

So to successfully sell advertising space, you need to:

Set up a websiteAdd valuable Content to it – that provides viable informationGet traffic to the siteSell advertising space

Last but not least – become familiar with Google and Clickbank. Set up accounts there (free) and read up on the tools and information they offer (free).

This really is about affiliate marketing – see my next article for more on this.

Visit my site and take advantage of the free offers to ehlp you on your way

Peter Damien Ryan

Affiliate Marketing Solutions

See also my web site http://www.readingbooks-4fun.com and explore – this is a site I set up with no experience in IT or Web design.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Peter_Damien_Ryan
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