3 Simple Ways to Start Your Home Based Internet Business Right
Now
So, you've finally decided to take that giant leap of faith and
start your very own home based internet business. You've decided
that it's finally time to step up to the plate and claim your
share of all those internet riches you keep hearing about. Only
problem is, now that you've finally made your decision, it seems
like a pretty daunting task deciding what to do next. Using the
term "information overload" to describe the problem seems like a
huge understatement.
Well, if you're really serious about starting your own home
based internet business, the next step really doesn't have to be
that difficult at all. There are 3 relatively simple ways to
start making an online income and one of them is sure to fit
your particular idea of what it is you would like to do. So,
just relax, take a deep breath, and peruse the following list
until you find something that strikes the right cord.
1-Join One or Several Affiliate Programs
This is probably one of the easiest and quickest ways to get
started making money online. The internet is full of products
that have affiliate programs you can join and most of them pay
generous commissions. When you join an affiliate program, you
are simply making an agreement with the owner of a product that
you will receive a commision in exchange for referring a
prospect to that person's product (usually a sales page that you
have sent the prospect to via your affiliate link) if that
prospect ends up making a purchase.
Start by choosing a product or service that you're interested in
and then visit some of the websites which have achieved top
rankings for the keywords which describe that topic. You're sure
to find the top affiliate programs for that industry relatively
quickly. Or, try visiting one of the many affiliate program
directories (you can find them quickly enough in Google) and
scan their listings and recommendations until you find something
that appeals to you.
This is a good one for newbies since you don't even need your
own website to get started. You will, however, need to learn how
to use the pay per clicks so you can get some targeted traffic
to your affiliate link. Once you start generating some income
from the pay per clicks, you can then start reinvesting some of
your profits and get yourself set up with your own website. By
that time the prospect of getting set up with your own website
won't seem so daunting.
2-Join a Residual Income Program
Residual income programs are somewhat similiar to affiliate
programs in that you typically get paid for referring a prospect
to the program's website if that prospect decides to make a
purchase. However, the difference lies in the fact that with
these programs you also have the opportunity to earn a monthly
recurring income if the prospect you refer becomes a paying
member of the residual income opportunity program. For example,
I belong to one of these programs myself. If a prospect comes to
my website and clicks on a link which takes them to the sales
page for the product and they buy, then I get a commission.
However, if that prospect also decides to become a member of the
residual income opportunity program, then I get a check every
month as long as that prospect remains a member of that program.
People tend to be skeptical of these programs and get them
confused with pyramid schemes. The way to tell if one of these
programs is a pyramid scheme is to simply determine if the
company in question offers a real honest to goodness product or
service. If so, it cannot be classified as a pyramid scheme and
you should be okay. Don't be scared off by the fact that you
will most likely have to pay a monthly fee to participate in the
residual income opportunity. If you can build a downline for
yourself in one of these programs, the monthly fee will be
negligible compared to the potential residual income you could
earn. Alot of these programs will provide you with your own
cookie cutter website, which is okay if you are just getting
started. Again, use the pay per clicks to start generating some
traffic and then work on getting your own site up so you can
start to build your own opt in list.
3-Sell a Hard Good or Downloadable Infoproduct
Okay, okay, I know this one doesn't sound so simple or easy, but
to be honest, it's really not as hard as it might first appear.
Selling a hard good entails offering a real physical product
(like fishing poles, for instance) for sale in your own online
retail store. If this idea really appeals to you, go for it.
Brainstorm some products you would enjoy selling, then do some
keyword research in Wordtracker to develop a targeted niche
within that market (deep sea fishing poles?).
After that, you can use a drop ship source directory or the
search engines to find manufacturers or distributors who will
drop ship the merchandise for you (meaning they ship it directly
to the customer and you don't have to carry any inventory). Then
go to Ebay or Yahoo and sign up for one of their stores. I know
from personal experience that Yahoo has some merchant hosting
packages that are great and super easy to use. They'll even
provide you with a shopping cart feature and help get you set up
with a merchant account (so you can accept credit cards). Plus,
you'll get some traffic already built in since millions of
people are using their shopping directory to browse for products
every day.
As for the website itself, don't worry. Most hosting companies
today have some type of site builidng solution available for
those customers who wouldn't know an html code from a java
script. Believe me folks, if I, a completely technically useless
and html challenged technophobe can do this, ANYONE can.
Now, as to the infoproduct. By the way, I mean YOUR OWN
infoproduct. Everyone on the web and their mother will tell you
that this is the best way to make the really big bucks online.
Write about something you know and/or love. The topic of
internet marketing seems to have been way overdone. Unless, of
course, you are a true expert on some niche internet marketing
subject, then definitely do it. Just don't do it because
everyone else is.
As for the actual writing, you don't even have to do that if you
really don't want to. You can check out a site like elance.com
and post your project and have writers bid on completing the
project for you! And there are so many easy to use PDF ebook
creators available that formatting the book should pose no
technical challenge whatsoever. Set up a simple little one sales
page website with a link for payment processing, optimize the
site for the engines, use the pay per clicks, find some JV
partners, and you're in the money!
By the way, I know of some guys who have about 10 or 15 of these
little mini sites set up selling little reports on niche topics
and raking in an average of $2,000 a month from each site. And
they're incredibly easy to set up and practically run on
autopilot once you do!
Well, there you have it. Just a few relatively simple ways to
get you started on the way to raking in YOUR share of the
internet gold mine!