The question on everyone's mind is: How to "Make money from home" and 2010 promises to be a colossal year for the home based business field. This may lead you to an answer that involves providing products online. But before you go out and procure all of the "get rich quick guides" and "Magic Blueprint" roadmaps, you must decide if you are meant for this type of venture. What I mean by that is that you need to decide if you have the devotion, aspiration, and self-control essential to succeed. If you do, congratulations because you will be able to make a lot of money in internet marketing.
There are hundreds if not thousands of new business opportunities being offered daily, so the next question is: which one do you want? Mark Yarnell (if you don't know who he is then Google him, because the man is a genius) has a great rule of thumb to answer this question. He says that you have to ask yourself whether or not you would offer the same deal to your mother. If you hesitate or answer no, then you will not succeed with that opportunity. We are controlled by our subconscious more than we know.
When we get involved with projects that we are not totally convinced of, we can never hope to find the energy and drive needed to commit ourselves wholeheartedly to the project. If we become involved for strictly financial reasons, then the project becomes a burden instead of an enjoyable experience or a way for us to help others. Any project, venture, home based business, or whatever you prefer to call it that does not have any intrinsic emotional value for us will never result in the high level of success and financial freedom we all desire. As unfortunate as that is, we are pre-programmed to respond that way.
So if you can honestly say that you would get your mother involved and you have the required ardor, drive and Discipline, the only thing left is to deposit your profits. No problem right? I mean everybody can make money from home, right? Well yes, everyone can make money from home, but the reality is that not everyone will. The reason is that most people don't stick with it long enough to see a profit. You may begin with lots of drive (or perhaps like me out of necessity), but somewhere along the line you get waylaid by the bright lights and shiny lures of the next "best thing since slice bread, make a million in minutes" gimmick.
This is because truly making money on the net is a long, hard process that requires a systematic, ritualized process that will at a constant rate. If you don't have a system that you follow every day, constantly refining and improving your methods you will not succeed. There are many systems out there but you need to find the one that is a good fit for you. What I can say though, is that any system that makes big claims about autopilot or "making a million dollars a year without doing anything" out of the box is just looking to get your money. Take the time to find a system that offers comprehensive training on the basics of internet marketing and lead generation.
Find one that offers you a way to have a funded proposal so that you can monetize your leads as they make their way through the sales funnel. If you don't know what I am talking about, take a look around for the answers because those are necessary parts of the puzzle if you want any kind of long term success. For those of you who need money today, I have put together a list of the three ways I have been able to generate a decent income all on my own.
The three methods I am about to offer are all based on the idea of affiliate marketing. For readers who don't know, affiliate marketing is simply a sales strategy that makes use of salesmen who are "affiliated" with the main company via their affiliation with a third party company or the main company's affiliate program. This sales force is not paid salaries; rather they receive commissions on the sales that they produce.
This is the dominant force on the internet today. Companies such as eBay, as well as small business owners and product creators make use of affiliates every day. Most of the people looking for a way to make money from home do not have a website or a lot of money to invest so I am going to lay out some FREE ways to make use of affiliate marketing to make some money today. The following techniques assume that you have already enrolled in an affiliate program such as ClickBank (free to enroll and they have tons of products).
The first way is article marketing. The fact that you are reading this article and have made it this far is proof that this strategy works. Article marketing can be tricky though. For one, you ARE NOT allowed to put your affiliate link in the body of the article. You can however make use of the "signature" boxes to promote your products. There are thousands of clever ways to do this, but the most effective way is to use anchor text to post your link. You are allowed two links in the signature box for most sites. The name of the game in article marketing is volume is king, but content duplication is a kingdom killer.
That simply means that you need to put your content out there for as many eyes to see as possible, post your articles to all of the article directories and I guarantee you will get some sales if you provide value with product reviews, personal testimonials, or other creative tactics. However, the thing to keep in mind is that copying your article from other people is not only illegal, but also lowers the chances of Google seeing it as new and therefore relevant which lowers its chances of being seen. Without going into long explanations of page rank (in this article), let me just say that you need to be on page one so make your content original. Remember, if you want to make money from home, you need to be creative and informative or people will not pay attention.
After article marketing, blogging can be a great way to get a lot of people to notice you and give them a reason to buy what you want them to. Good blogs have hundreds of readers. They provide valuable or entertaining information that builds their relationship with their readers. We all agree that we are much more likely to buy a product that our friend recommends to us, than what the salesmen tell us we should buy. That is the basic idea here, build trust and they will do whatever you want. WordPress blogs are free and are an great source of making money from home. The free blogs are not as ideal as self-hosted blogs, but are quick and easy to get started. Remember, it is not about how it looks so much as what it contains. Traffic is objective here, so why not link your articles to your blog in the signature box?
The easiest way for most people to begin to make money from home is by taking advantage of the various social networks like twitter and Facebook to create traffic to your affiliate products. However, this method is quite advanced because you need to be very careful about the way you do it. Not only does Facebook (and the rest) frown on blatant spamming, your prospects will not appreciate it either. This method should be approached as if it were a blog. Try making a group and filling it with insightful observations about general topics relating to the products you decide to sell. Make friends with 30 people per day that you find in groups with similar interests. Build a personal relationship with them first and then invite them into your group. Make them feel like they really know you. After your group reaches 50 or so, you can begin sending them a few emails a week with soft sales tactics that include your affiliate link. The idea with this tactic, as well as the other two, is to lead with value.
By Kenrick L. Callwood
