Notes From a Publisher: How to Make Money Online - Part One

This is going to be an ongoing series, so bear with me. I'm still swamped with work, but I wanted to take a few moments to write some thoughts down about this and ask you want you want to know specifically. With that in mind, here are some of the basics of making money online.

Products

Basically, this is like the brick and mortar counterpart - ie you sell things online. There are many ways to do this. From eBay (some are quite successful at this, although I've never done it) to drop-shipping to actually having the product on hand and selling it via the web (maybe arts and crafts or something) there are many ways to make money selling physical products online. 

While you can spend a LOT of money getting a professional e-commerce site built, there are alternatives. I believe Yahoo offers "online stores" at a reasonable monthly rate. Here are some other options:

• eBay / Auctions - eBay takes a cut of the sale and charges a listing fee, but if you can find something local at a rummage that you know is popular online (and kinda rare), you can make a good profit. The trick is in knowing what to buy and being stable enough to "wait it out" if need be. Also, a place to store all the "stuff" and working with USPS or UPS or Fed Ex or someone to ship all the items. There's a bit of paperwork needed to track everything as well. For some people, this could be a great career. 
• Drop-Shipping - Quite simply, this means you sell something online but someone else packages the product and takes care of shipping and handling for a cut of the process. This can work, but I have no direct experience here ... yet. It takes a bit of the work out of the other one so you can concentrate on marketing and traffic and etc etc etc.
• Sell Your Crafts - From listing a free classified here at AFP to sell your hand-made items to getting a fully functioning online store of your own, there are many options here. With input from you, we can explore some of them if you want. 

Services

 This is where I still make most of my money (at the moment.) If you have a skill that's not needed locally, there may be a need globally. That is, if it's a computer or information related skill. Here are some ideas on services you can offer online.

• Content - From copywriting to "article writing" there's a huge need (all over the planet) for well written "native english" writing. You do need to have skills, but if you know where to look it's not that hard to find work/clients and begin to build up your reputation.
• Photography - This is tougher because there are so many great photographers out there, but some people sell stock photos online and make decent money on the side.
• Design - From web design to general graphic design, if you can create things with the computer this is a useful service for a lot of people and companies.

There are other services you can offer online as well.

Publishing

  While you work on the other two, it's always good to have a long term goal that you're trying to reach - i.e. having your own websites. Whether it's your own ecommerse sites (plural) or an online forum, it's a great idea to have your own websites to generate revenue streams. 

• Blogs - Blogs come in a lot of different flavors. Best bet is to read a lot of blogs and become familiar with the 'blogosphere'...
• Niche Sites - Do you have a hobby? Starting a website around it (depending on how popular the hobby is and how much competition is online) can be profitable as well as enjoyable.
• ebooks - Do you have knowledge that others would find useful? Putting together an "electronic book" and selling it can be quite profitable is the content is popular and good enough for people to want to buy. You need to know how to market the ebook, though. Don't expect to open a website and have traffic pour in.

As you know my looking around the Internet, there are a lot more types of websites out there. Or maybe you have a new idea. Having "real estate" online is one of the wisest investments according to Bill Gates and others.

Domain Names

Speaking of real estate online, I take this information for granted, but some of you might not know it. Basically, a website can be considered to be the marriage of two things - a domain name (this is the actual somethingsomething.com or .net .org etc) and a webserver (this stores the files - text and pictures - and 'serves' them to the general public.) 

• Domain Names - This is a long series of posts on its own, but you can get them new (if they aren't registered) from under a dollar (for .info domains) to $7 or so for .coms to $30 or so for .tv or other specialized TLDs (top level domains - the last few lettersof the domain - .edu is education, .gov is government, etc. So, most domains are around a $10/year investment. Some people are domain flippers - they buy a domain or website for cheap, fix it up, and resell for a profit. Others just buy and sell domain names - domaineers. There's still BIG money in this.
• Web Servers - For a simple static HTML site or a small community running a CMS (content management system) a "shared hosting" server may be enough. This should run around $50/year. It is shared with other people.The next level of hosting is VPS or VDS (virtual private server or virtual dedicated server) and these range from $30/month to $200/month. At the high-end is dedicated hosting. Expect to pay $200 to hundreds of thousands per month depending on what your needs are. The more visitors you have and the more complex your site is, the more "server power" you're going to need. This is all good information to have if you want to make money online. 

Marketing

You're going to have to have to know at least the basics of Internet marketing to make money online. While the same basic tenets of marketing apply, there are a lot of specialized areas for online marketing. From SEO (search engine optimization) to SMO (social media optimization) to Twitter etc. there are a lot of things you should at least be aware of if you want to make money online.  Being able to use marketing to drive traffic is one of the most crucial things for people who want to make money online. 

I think sometimes people believe they can "throw up a site" on the Internet and the traffic will pour in. Chances are that most likely they won't ... unless you know how to market the site well. Take a look at AFP - a couple years in and we're still under-marketed, I think. I'm not worried too much yet, because I don't want to grow too large until I can provide the content. Or perhaps it's the lack of content that has AFP 'circling' at this traffic level. Smile. 

Advertising

Unless you have an ecommerce site (or don't want advertising on the site for another reason - there are some), once you have content built up, you can make money with advertising. There's a lot to know in this area.

• CPM advertising - This stands for Cost Per Thousand (M is roman for 1000.) Basically, it is what you get for every 1,000 pageviews (NOT hits ... another blog there entirely). So, a $5 CPM means that every 1,000 pageviews on your site would generate $5 ... you get 20,000 pageviews, that's $100... It's a numbers game. Now, when the Internet was new, newspapers could commend $25 and higher CPMs. That slipped to $10 CPM. Today, averages range from less than a dollar per thousand to $10 CPM. It all depends on the content and the traffic - internet traffic is almost another blog post entirely as well...CYOA
• CPA advertising - Cost Per Action - that is, if someone buys something you get a flat rate for the sale as commission or a percentage of the sale. Percentages range from 1% to as high as 50% or more. You do need a good amount of knowledge about advertising and how it works online to muddle through some of this stuff in the beginning. This type of advertising can sometimes result in a higher CPM than if you would have sold the banner space (known as inventory) at a CPM rate. I use this here at AFP. Not sure if the Herald Bulletin is employing it or not. 
• CPL advertising -  This is cost per lead. Generally, if someone fills out a form and gives up information - email address, real address - you get a small amount of money for each person that signs-up.

There are many many other things to talk about in regards to advertising online. This is one of my areas of specialty, so perhaps number two in this make money online series will deal with some type of advertising.

 Choose Your Own Adventure

Remember when those books first came out? Well, I do. They were the ones you could pick the character's action and you would have to flip to a different page number depending on what you decided. Well, here at AFP this series on making money online is kinda like that. You, the readers, get to help decide what area I focus on next. What do you want to know more about? These are just the basics. Talk to me and let's decide (as a community) what you want to learn about next. 

That said, realize that I'm not an expert. I'm still struggling, but I've been on my own for over four years now and things are looking better all the time. I hope to be caught up ... well by the end of the year hopefully. Start the next decade out right. Smile. Still, I think I've been blessed and want to share what I do know and let you know what to stay away from, etc.

What do you want me to talk about next?

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