How To Earn Extra Money

If you've bought and used Internet marketing courses, tips, tricks, secrets, doodads, and gizmos, then you most likely have enough knowledge to understand how to make at least a few dollars online. In fact, making $5 to $10 a day on the Internet with your own web site is actually really, really easy, even if you're just running a very basic informational site with Adsense ads on it.

If you want to make more, though, you need to do one of two things:

1. Massively increase your web site traffic.
2. Multiply the number of small web sites you have.

Regardless of whether you do one or both, in order to do it effectively, you need to implement and maintain SYSTEMS. In fact, any Internet marketing course that you buy that is worthwhile is going to be a manual describing how to set up and run systems.

What exactly is a system? A system is defined as, "a procedure or process for obtaining an objective." In this case, our objective is to generate income, be it from product sales, ad clicks, new user registrations, etc.

Here's an example of a system: Google Adwords. You create ads, insert keywords, assign bids for clicks, get traffic. Wash, rinse, repeat. You can do the exact same process (system) for each and every web site that you own.

Creating such web sites is, in and of itself, a system. If you have a web hosting account that allows you to host multiple domain names, then you can create a new web site every hour or every day if you want to. For example, you can create a series of "how to" web sites on subjects you are interested in. You can create a template web site that includes your Adsense code, navigation links, etc. On each web site, you place a few articles that you write about the subject. You could cover a whole bunch of subjects, such as "how to clean your house", "how to organize your garage," "how to change your oil," etc.

Once you have a system like this set up, you can work on it when you want to, and replicate the sites AND the traffic model. This is honestly how you make large amounts of money online from what initially sounds like a small idea.

If you're starting a web site, then you're going to need web hosting. HostGator has an awesome deal going right now that basically gives you the first month free. Here's what to do:

1. Go to the HostGator website.

2. Order the "Baby Croc" shared web hosting package. It MUST be the Baby Croc.

3. At checkout, use coupon code HGCOUPONBLOG and you'll get the first month for a penny, but they won't actually charge it until month 2.

I received an email today from a reader asking about how to get started inexpensively in his own business. What I sent him is the following, which is a summary of the sum of the resources we have available to you on this web site.

If you're looking to get into work from home stuff, I have a completely separate list that I maintain. It has a ton of info you could spend days reading, about how to do various types of online business, all geared somehow towards making money from affiliate programs. It's labeled as just "work from home" but there is a lot of business stuff in there. I don't really update it anymore, but everything is still up. It's also free:

http://howtoearnhq.com/work/

I'm also giving away as MP3 downloads a 28 CD course that we used to sell for $300 on places like Amazon and eBay. It's a LOT of material to listen to, but if you have the time on your hands, i think it provides a great intro to setting up your own Internet business (I'm biased in that opinion, of course). You can register for that at:

http://howtoearnhq.com/affiliate-marketing-course/

To get started in an Internet business can be done for less than $100. The nice thing is that, depending on what you do, the first one consumes most of the money, while the second is almost free, except for your time. That's why I love affiliate marketing in particular.

Hopefully this will be of help to the rest of you out there.

I'm willing to help a small handful of people start up their own affiliate marketing business. It will require WORK on your part, but should never consume more than about 30-45 minutes per day. Here's how it's going to work:

1. You will come up with the general concept for an INFORMATIONAL web site.

2. You will go to the Google External Keyword Tool and research potential keywords for the site. Under the "choose columns to display" drop down list, you will need to select "Show Estimated Avg. CPC", then click on that column header twice once it shows up in order to sort the column from highest cost keyword to lowest. You *want* to select the most expensive keywords for this exercise, and they need to be ABOVE $1.50 in order for this to work.

3. Email me with the concept and the highest value keyword that you found.

4. I will then:

1. verify your keyword research

2. tell you whether I think it will be profitable or not

3. register a domain name

4. create a basic web site

5. set up an email list

5. I will set up marketing campaigns on Google Adwords, social networking sites, video sites, and other places that will account for about 70 percent of the traffic to the web site.

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I've decided to release the entire "How To Earn Extra Money Online" audio course to readers as a free download series. We're going to release one per week for the next 6 months, as it is a 30-CD course all told. This course used to sell on major online retailers such as Amazon and Google Base for $298.

The first CD is an overview of the process for setting up an online business. To download it, just click the link below:

Online Business Setup Step-By-Step Free Download (15.3 megabytes)

You will need some sort of unZIP utility to decompress the archive, as well as a program that can play MP3 files to listen to it.

I hope that you find the information in this CD useful. I welcome your comments, thoughts, and suggestions about the ideas presented in this CD - just leave a comment below.

To your success,

Jassen Bowman

The truth of the matter is that, if all you're looking to do is make an extra couple hundred bucks per month on the Internet, it's NOT hard. On more than one occasion, I have spent about 90 minutes in front of a computer with friends, showing them by having them doing. By the end of that 90 minutes, they can have the basic shell of an online business set up.

So, what is the basic plan? Seriously, here's all you really have to do, and how to do it using nothing but FREE tools:

1). Create a Google account in order to get access to all their tools. If you have Gmail, then you already have a Google account.

2). Use the Google External Keyword Tool to find high average CPC Adwords keywords (do a Google search for the tool to find it - it's self-explanatory to use).

3). Create a Blogger blog (part of Google also), using several of the most commonly searched for, high average CPC (cost per click) keywords discovered in step 2 as your title and in your description and first post.

4). Edit your blog's template layout and ad Adsense blocks to the sidebar, header, footer, or between posts. During this process, you will create an Adsense account, which takes 2-3 business days to have it approved.

5). Also to your blog layout, add a Feedburner signup button. Feedburner is also a Google service, and provides a free way of building an email notification list. You MUST have an email list of some sort if you want long term profitability out of your new web site.

6). Create an account on EzineArticles.com (ok, NOT a Google service, but still free) and write an article about your topic, using some of the keyword phrases from step 2, and providing good info, and then create an author resource box that contains a keyword-specific link back to your new blog.

7). Rule 1: Update your blog daily with relevent, informative, up to date, keyword rich posts. This will help you start showing up in the Google SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) when people search for your keywords.

8). Rule 2: All blog posts are also articles that you should submit on ezinearticles.com. This will help build traffic.

If you're blogging about something that you really enjoy and that has sufficient search traffic, you will get to the $200/mo level in Google Adsense revenue in just a few months. Is it overnight? NO. That's why you'd better pick something you're passionate about, because you're going to get sick of it pretty quick otherwise.

This is not meant to be a comprehensive guide to making money blogging. It's meant to give you the overview. For a complete guide to doing this, you can snag a copy of my online guide to making money as a blogger by going to:

http://HowToEarnHQ.com/work/

Signing up there will give you access to the Blog Dollars guide, plus tons of other resources I have up for working from home.

To your success,

Jassen Bowman

This is a follow up to my previous post concerning keyword research and niche selection. In that post, I discussed how to do keyword research and find market opportunities on the Internet. It is well known that once you have selected a niche, built a web site, optimized it for the search engines, and added some content, that you cannot just sit back and relax. The importance of keeping live, fresh, and up to date content on your site on an ongoing basis is talked about ad nauseum in various Internet marketing circles. I wanted to provide a real life case study about this situation.

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As of this writing, I own the #7 spot on Google for the keyword phrase "rachael flatt". Rachael Flatt is the reigning U.S. ladies national silver medalist and reigning World Junior Champion in the sport of figure skating. Until this morning, I didn't even that I owned that coveted #7 spot because, quite frankly, I had never checked. Several weeks ago I put up a very, very basic fan site for her after meeting her in person at a figure skating competition. Her silver medal performance at the 2008 U.S. Nationals was a significant inspiration for me finally getting off my duff and starting to skate myself.

So, what made me check? Apparently, her agent did a Google search to see what was out there about her, and found my bare-bones fan site. She then contacted me about the possibility of creating a more expansive site to help promote Rachael in the figure skating sphere.

This led me to one of the very initial steps involved with any sort of online enterprise: keyword research. When it comes to Internet marketing, keyword research is a major component of several tasks that go by different names, such as "market research", "niche selection", and "search engine optimization." Keyword research is a very important aspect of each of these business building tasks, and is often the first place to start whenever a new idea emerges.

Why would I want to do keyword research for a FAN site? Quite honestly, it has to do with niche selection. There is an entire universe of athletes out there, and converting a basic fan site into a full blown project requires the knowledge ahead of time about whether that athlete has enough search traffic to warrant the effort. In addition, it's wise to know what other keywords relevant to the project need to be targeted for optimization.

Where does one start with keyword research? Personally, I use a very methodical approach, which has evolved over time as tools and technologies change. Here's my current keyword research checklist, verbatim out of my own playbook:

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This is more of a poll than anything else right now...consider it an idea I'm kicking around. I'd like to get some measure of how many people would be not only interested in having me help them set up their own Internet profit stream, but would also be willing to commit to doing their part for no less than three months to make it happen.

What I'm envisioning is something like this:

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In my quest to bring my own costs down and also find "new" things to share with with my readers and "earn extra money" list subscribers, I recently revisited the wonderful world of finding free web traffic.

There are some great free things you can do out there, and many of them that I've been learning about myself lately center around the concept of blog promotion. While I've converted most of my own web sites to blog publishing platforms of one type or another, I've never really gotten into the learning about RSS feeds, content promotion through blog rings, pinging, and that sort of thing. Now that I've started to implement it, I'm really fascinated by the possibilities, and have added some blog feed based marketing methods to my list of things to always do. Speaking of which, if you don't have a marketing playbook or checklist of things you do regularly, then I encourage you to adopt one.

Content is, and always has been, the king the any media source. This includes television, newspaper, magazine, radio, Internet, and any other medium. The only reason that people tune in to a medium is for the content. With that in mind, you'll notice that most of my basic, free marketing methods in my playbook revolve around providing content, and using that content to build my lists (the money is in the list!).

Without further ado, here is my marketing matrix of free methods:

1. Ads on free classified ads sites, such as Backpages, Craigslist, and Kijiji.

2. Posting articles on article directory sites, such as EzineArticles.

(a) Corrolary: All articles are blog posts, and most blog posts are articles!

3. Creating educational YouTube videos and putting URL in the video and link in the description text.

4. Posting content to industry hubs and networking sites. For example, ActiveRain is a very popular blogging and online networking community for real estate brokers, in much the same way that Facebook is for college students. Networking with other people expands your sphere, also.

5. Discussion board participation. Pick forums related to your industry and site, and put links in your signature line so it appears in all your posts. These can be stand-alone sites, or "groups" on sites like MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

6. Comment on related blogs, leaving a link behind.

7. Automatically submit your content to aggregators. The easiest way to do this is to burn your feed to FeedBurner and enable the feature to distribute your feed to blog aggregators.

8. Place links in your blog posts to allow readers to submit them to Digg, Delicious, Stumble Upon, Fark, and other such "best of blogging" sites.

And last, but definitely MOST important, the number one web traffic generator of all time...

9. Build your list! Get people to subscribe to your email list or blog feed to receive announcements of blog updates, product promotions, tips, tricks, secrets, and anything else your readers might want to know about.

I recently became a huge fan of Feedburner.com, a Google product. It allows you to automate several functions listed above, as well as BUILD A LIST for FREE! You can add a "Get email updates" subscription form on your blog and they will be automatically notified whenever you put up a new post. While lacking the significant power of a sequential autoresponder, it's a great way to build a list without subscribing to a service. Feedburner will even let you export your subscriber list in Excel format, so you can take it with you if you move beyond it's capabilities.

These 9 free marketing methods should get you thousands of unique visitors per month to your site, which is sufficient to generate a small but significant Adsense or affiliate revenue stream.

To your success,

Jassen Bowman

I'm a huge fan of Google. With nothing but Google tools, you can quickly set up an entire online business of your own. What's presented here is intended to be a multiple use miniature business plan. Also, this is nothing new, it's been discussed on this blog in detail before and in excruciating detail on the Make Money Blogging job guide elsewhere on this web site.

How much money can somebody make using this EXACT strategy? To be honest, I don't have an answer yet. Using this strategy and my own 9-step Internet marketing plan using free methods, I've created several test blogs to see how much money I can actually make with them. One of them is the Yoga & Pilates Lifestyle blog that I set up last Friday as a demonstration when my friend Sasha asked me to show her how to set something like this up.

In the near future, I'm going to make a video demonstrating exactly how to go about doing all this, starting with nothing but a web browser and an Internet connection. It won't be tonight, but I'll post it in the next week or two for you to watch.

In the meantime, here is my written list of steps to follow:

1. Define your niche. This needs to be something that you're genuinely interested in, since you'll be reading, writing, and otherwise dealing with it a LOT. Plus, this will be a hobby for a while until it starts to make money.
2. Do some research to make sure that your niche is narrow enough to be a true niche, but broad enough to have a good sized market.
3. Create a Google account. This is the launching point for all tools Google.
4. From your Google services page, create a Blogger blog. You'll need to pick a template, layout, color scheme, and all that jazz.
5. On the "Customize" page of Blogger, click on "Add A Page Element" and select an AdSense unit.
6. You will be walked through the process of creating your Google AdSense account.
7. Pick your ad options and put up ads. You can have up to 3 AdSense blocks on a page - see my sample yoga site above for suggested positioning.
8. Sign up for a Feedburner.com account. Activate the features that feeds your blog content to other sites, and also enable the feature that allows people to subscribe to email updates.
9. Using the Blogger template editor, add the email subscription form as an element to your blog. See my sample yoga blog for suggested positioning.
10. Write articles for your blog. Cross post these articles to article directory sites to attract visitors.
11. If relevant and permitted for your site's category, post ads on Craigslist, Backpage, and Kijiji to advertise your new site.
12. Comment on related blogs, leaving a link back to your site.
13. Become an active participant in discussion boards, Yahoo Groups, Google Groups, etc., relevant to your blog, leaving links back to your site where permitted and appropriate.
14. Create YouTube videos relevant to your blog. Embed the video on your blog as content, and put a link the YouTube description field back to your site. YouTube is free, and also owned by Google!
15. Repeat steps 10 through 14 to maintain and grow your site.

There you have it. A fairly simple business plan that takes less than 2 hours to get up and running.

NOTE: Please check with Google, Blogger, YouTube, FeedBurner, etc., for help on using their individual components and features. They each have well documented, user friendly help pages to show you how to do all the things I've mentioned, you just have to look them up and use them.

To your success,

Jassen Bowman

Working from in an Internet business is the ultimate way for everyday people to achieve their dreams of leisure time and financial freedom. We live in a truly exciting moment in history where nearly anyone with determination and good sense can make money online.

Sadly, many people never realize this because they associate Internet business with the kinds of companies they saw during the first 'Internet boom': big companies with generous investors, lots of fancy technology, and heavy advertising campaigns.

This vision of what it means to own an Internet business is far from the truth for most people, however. It is easier than ever now to go into business online, and I'd like to share with you the top three easiest ways of doing so.

Method #1: Affiliate Business

An affiliate marketing business is the easiest type of Internet business to start. As an affiliate, you promote other people's products and earn money (in the form of 'commissions') when you generate a sale.

The reason this type of business is so easy is that you don't have to own or create the products yourself. You can find products to promote in just about every market niche out there, too, so you aren't limited in terms of what you promote or how much you can earn.

Method #2: Digital Product Business

A digital product business is the second easiest type of business to start. In this type of business, you create your own products in the form e-books, software or other types of content that can be downloaded directly onto the customer's hard drive after the sale.

This type of business is good if you are prolific at generating product ideas, enjoy the 'status' of authoring your own products and don't mind handling customer service requests.

Method #3: Auction Business

An auction business is the third easiest online business model. You can sell both digital and physical products at sites like Ebay, Yahoo! Auctions, Ubid, Amazon, and others.

The drawback with this type of business is that much more work is involved, trust me. You've got to manage multiple auctions per day to make real money, and then you also have to handle product packaging, shipping, inventory, customer service, refunds, etc.

If any of these methods interest you, I recommend reading up on each of them in the appropriate work sections here on the site for more information. They are all very legitimate, income-producing techniques, and one of them is sure to be the right one for you!

Take care!

~Jassen Bowman~

Many people dream of working from home. To some, 'working from home' means telecommuting to a regular job. To others, it means nothing less than being their own boss in a home-based business.

Home-based businesses come in many shapes and sizes. The Internet has made it easier than ever for the average person to start their own business right from their home computers. Some entrepreneurs set up businesses around selling goods on Ebay or their own online store. Others go into business selling other people's products by becoming affiliate marketers.

In all cases, though, whole empires are created with a computer and an Internet connection. So, how do you get started doing the same for yourself?

The first step is to brainstorm some 'market ideas'. You'll want to sit down and write out as many potential money-making, online niche markets as you can. Then, go online and look at what people are buying and selling in those markets. This will give you a big picture idea of what's important (and worth spending money on) in that market.

Next, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do I have the ability or desire to create competing products for any of those markets?

2. If the answer is 'No', is there a chance I could make money selling the existing products in the marketplace if they were my own?

If the answer to question 2 is “Yes”, then you've just found the basis for your first Internet business. The solution lies in what's known as “affiliate marketing.” Affiliate marketing is an online business model that lets you earn commissions by promoting other people's products.

All you need to go into business as an affiliate is your own domain name, website and follow up autoresponder. You can get each of these components on a shoestring budget, and the set up process is not too difficult. if you are already computer literate.

What you end up with is an instant home business that you can grow on your time, as quickly or as slowly as necessary. It is also a business you can duplicate over and over again in order to create multiple streams of income.

So, if you want to work from home using your computer, I highly suggest starting your own Internet business centered around affiliate marketing. The methods are easy to learn, easy to implement and offer you a truly legitimate way of making good money online.

Sincerely,

Jassen Bowman

Anyone looking for a simple work from home opportunity should consider starting their own Internet-based home business. Don't believe it? Think the Internet is too complicated? Keep reading and you just might change your mind!

Why Internet Businesses Are Simple:

1.Low overhead/low start up costs.

It doesn't cost a lot to start an Internet business, nor does it cost much more to maintain one. You can get set up for under $200 in most cases. Also, as with any business, you can use the principle of leverage for growth by investing your profits.

2. Plenty of market opportunity.

Almost every conceivable market has a home online these days. You can reach potential customers all across the world, any time of the day or night.

Plus, there is a range of options when it comes to what you sell and how you sell it. You can sell physical goods to people, or you can sell 'digital' products that customers download to their hard drives.

You don't have to own these products, either. Instead, you can earn money promoting other people's products via affiliate programs for the most hands-free type of business possible.

3. Ability to automate most business functions.

The Internet allows you to automate just about everything, including: lead generation, payment processing, product delivery, follow ups and more. This means more time for you to spend doing the things you really enjoy, as your business (once properly set up) will virtually run itself and make the sales for you.

4. Proven money-making methods already in place.

Tactics such as affiliate marketing represent proven money-making methods that rely on the fundamentals of real marketing. There's no question about what works, how it works or why it works. Once you understand how to target profitable markets and get your offer in front of those markets, you practically have a license to print money.

The only way an Internet-based home business could be any simpler is if you could just pay someone to do all the work for you, then send you the checks. But, seriously, I think that doing it yourself really is half the fun.

To your success,

Jassen Bowman

What's the difference between a real, home-based Internet business and a get-rich-quick fantasy? The answer can be found in the basic principles of marketing and economics.

Real businesses serve real markets with real needs. Get-rich-quick schemes serve the interests of the people selling the schemes.

Real businesses follow a proven model and make use of step-by-step plans to achieve objectives. Get-rich-quick schemes are over-simplified and 'fuzzy', and don't seem to follow anything other than their own internal logic.

Real home-based Internet businesses grow and adapt along with market conditions. Get-rich-quick schemes are limited to a “just do this one thing” approach, often taking advantage of fads or loopholes in the system.

Real businesses rely on targeting, lead generation, follow up and repeat customers. Get-rich-quick schemes tell you that all you have to do is buy the system, press a button or two, then sit back on your couch and wait for the money to roll in.

I'm sure you're getting the idea by now. If you want a real home-based Internet business, you need a proven model to work with - a model that works because it utilizes common sense marketing techniques as its fuel.
The scams and fads out there today aren't based on common sense. They're based on taking advantage of the very human desire to get something for nothing. Having everything come to you 'easy' and 'fast' might seem like an ideal situation, but nothing worth having really comes without effort.

You can definitely earn a great income online, but only if you're wiling to put aside the false dream of 'making millions overnight' for little to no work. Make sure all of your efforts are focused on delivering truly quality products to real people with a focus on building trust-based relationships, and you can't go wrong.

Take care,

Jassen Bowman

If you are thinking of starting an Internet home business, the tips discussed here will help you make smart choices and get started on the right foot.

There's almost nothing more rewarding than working from home, and no easier way to do it than on the Internet. However, there still some pitfalls you'll want to avoid because they can make or break your business.

The following tips will help you avoid these pitfalls and secure the long-term success of your business:

1. Start with a 'model' and a 'plan'

Two 'must have' items for any Internet home business include: A) a proven business model, and a plan of action.

Even though Internet businesses are often easier to set up and profit from than traditional businesses, they still require you to have a vision and marketing plan in place.

You don't want to 'fly blind.' Make sure you've identified a profitable target market, have a system in place for plucking customers from that market.

2. Leverage your profits

One mistake made by new business owners is in spending the money generated by their business on everything except their business!

There's nothing wrong with setting aside some of the profits for yourself, after all, that's one reason you went into business. However, you must set aside and reinvest enough of your profits each month so that your operating budget will grow.

For example, if you spent $20 on traffic generation this month, and earned $150, why not put $40 or $60 towards traffic generation next month? Better yet, try putting in $80 to $100. If you know that more traffic will mean more leads and more sales, it's a no-brainer because your profits next month stand to double or even triple.

3. Learn to delegate

Even the most successful internet home business owners dislike (or simply aren't good at) certain tasks associated with running their business. What do you absolutely hate? What's one area where you feel your skills need a lot of improvement?

These areas of 'weakness' can suck a way a lot of valuable time that you could better spend doing what you're really good at. If you have the means, consider hiring someone to do those jobs or commit to finding a way to do it faster on your own.

4. Take Daily Action

Think about what you can do each day to grow your business, even if you think you've got all the pieces in place. You can always benefit from more traffic and more leads, right?

Stay up to date on market research and add new keywords to your pay-per-click campaigns, or take a spare hour to write that article you've been putting off. Compose a message to your opt-in list, and offer them a new 'freebie' to build good will and keep your open rates up.

Last, but not least, don't forget to take a break and just enjoy the freedom of being your own boss. Go for a walk or run a few errands. It's important to get out and interact with people, especially if you work alone at home!

To your success!

~Jassen Bowman~

Generating serious income from a home-based Internet business requires more than 'good ideas' or hard work. It requires a step-by-step system that is proven to convert prospects into customers, all while letting you work 'smarter', not harder.

An effective system, no matter what it is you're selling, should revolve around the following process: Target Your Market -> Target Your Offer -> Drive Targeted Traffic To Offer -> Follow Up.

Let's talk about each component now in a little more detail.

*Target Your Market

This is always the first step when starting an Internet business. If you're already in business and not making much money, I would recommend going back to review your market research. Improper targeting can bring your whole business to its knees no matter what else you do.

*Target Your Offer

Once you find a hot market, you must find an appropriate offer for that market. This means bringing unique products/services to that market that truly address the market's needs, problems or concerns.

Pay close attention to the difference between targeting and relevance. What's 'relevant' is not always targeted.

For example, a warm coat would be relevant to someone living in Alaska because it's cold there; but, as a product, it wouldn't be very targeted unless the coat had some special feature that people there would use. This is a subtle distinction, but an important one.

*Drive Targeted Traffic

Targeted traffic is market-specific traffic. In other words, you want to draw visitors to your offer from market you're targeting. This is not just about using the right keywords, but also about advertising on market-related websites using text links, banner ads, signature files, classifieds and anything else at your disposal.

*Follow Up

You should try to capture as much of the traffic to your site as possible onto an opt-in email list. This list will allow you to keep your offer in front of your prospects until they convert into customers. It will also allow you to generate repeat business from existing customers.

If you follow these four steps, you're on the way to having a winning system that can generate significant profits for you now and in the future. The steps are based on solid marketing principles and will work for you in any niche market, which means you can put the system in place in as many Internet business as you like (which, by the way, you should).

To your success,

Jassen Bowman

It's true that there's a lot of money to be made online. At the same time, there are a lot of unscrupulous people selling scam business opportunities by hyping up how much money you can make online.

So, how do you sort through which ideas are 'too good to be true' and which ones are worth pursuing, when even the legitimate biz opps sometimes rely on hype?

The answer is: you need to get clear on which criteria truly matter when it comes to the feasibility of any online money-making system. The list of questions below will help you evaluate your options effectively.

1. Does this business serve a real market?

2. Is the market highly targeted?

3. Will I sell/promote products that are truly in demand?

4. Is there a clear system of traffic generation?

5. Is there a clear system of lead generation and follow up?

6. How much power do I have over the way the business is run?

7. How much support is provided if I need help or have questions?

8. When, where and how will I get paid?

9. How will the products be delivered?

10. Does this really let me be my own boss and make the executive decisions?

If your answer is “no” or “I don't know” to any of the above questions, be very cautious. While there's still a chance you might be looking at legitimate opportunity, there's also a good chance you're looking at a scheme that isn't going to work for you.

Real Internet businesses follow the fundamental rules of marketing, have a clear sales system in place and allow you to grow your business based on your own judgment!

Until next time,

Jassen Bowman

In my quest to bring my own costs down and also find "new" things to share with with my readers, I recently revisited the wonderful world of finding free web traffic.

There are some great free things you can do out there, and many of them that I've been learning about myself lately center around the concept of blog promotion. While I've converted most of my own web sites to blog publishing platforms of one type or another, I've never really gotten into the learning about RSS feeds, content promotion through blog rings, pinging, and that sort of thing. Now that I've started to implement it, I'm really fascinated by the possibilities, and have added some blog feed based marketing methods to my list of things to always do. Speaking of which, if you don't have a marketing playbook or checklist of things you do regularly, then I encourage you to adopt one.

Content is, and always has been, the king the any media source. This includes television, newspaper, magazine, radio, Internet, and any other medium. The only reason that people tune in to a medium is for the content. With that in mind, you'll notice that most of my basic, free marketing methods in my playbook revolve around providing content, and using that content to build my lists (the money is in the list!).

Without further ado, here is my marketing matrix of free methods:

1. Ads on free classified ads sites, such as Backpages, Craigslist, and Kijiji.

2. Posting articles on article directory sites, such as EzineArticles.

(a) Corrolary: All articles are blog posts, and most blog posts are articles!

3. Creating educational YouTube videos and putting URL in the video and link in the description text.

4. Posting content to industry hubs and networking sites. For example, ActiveRain is a very popular blogging and online networking community for real estate brokers, in much the same way that Facebook is for college students. Networking with other people expands your sphere, also.

5. Discussion board participation. Pick forums related to your industry and site, and put links in your signature line so it appears in all your posts. These can be stand-alone sites, or "groups" on sites like MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

6. Comment on related blogs, leaving a link behind.

7. Automatically submit your content to aggregators. The easiest way to do this is to burn your feed to FeedBurner and enable the feature to distribute your feed to blog aggregators.

8. Place links in your blog posts to allow readers to submit them to Digg, Delicious, Stumble Upon, Fark, and other such "best of blogging" sites.

And last, but definitely MOST important, the number one web traffic generator of all time...

9. Build your list! Get people to subscribe to your email list or blog feed to receive announcements of blog updates, product promotions, tips, tricks, secrets, and anything else your readers might want to know about.

I recently became a huge fan of Feedburner.com, a Google product. It allows you to automate several functions listed above, as well as BUILD A LIST for FREE! You can add a "Get email updates" subscription form on your blog and they will be automatically notified whenever you put up a new post. While lacking the significant power of a sequential autoresponder, it's a great way to build a list without subscribing to a service. Feedburner will even let you export your subscriber list in Excel format, so you can take it with you if you move beyond it's capabilities.

These 9 free marketing methods should get you thousands of unique visitors per month to your site, which is sufficient to generate a small but significant Adsense or affiliate revenue stream.

To your success,

Jassen Bowman

I've created a new category here on this blog for those interested in the wonderful world of selling on Amazon. This category is intended to be a platform for presenting tips, techniques, and information about becoming a “power seller” on Amazon.com. Most of the information here is intended for those individuals that are either:

1). Marketing consulting clients of How To Earn, LLC;

2). Participants in our reseller/dropship program for our line of audio CD titles;

3). Owners of any of our “How To Earn” line of business and marketing CDs.

The goal of this blog is to educate and spur to action those that are looking to build a small, part-time side income. James Orr and I often discuss the power of building a small side business in increments of about $400. The reasoning behind this target figure is because the vast majority of Americans are within that dollar amount of being broke every month, so it represents a good target for people to aspire to in order to obtain breathing room in there monthly budget.

Amazon is an incredible platform for selling certain categories of products. We focus our efforts on audiobooks, since that is what we publish. However, there are a multitude of other things you can sell on Amazon as a Pro Merchant besides books, tapes, CDs, and DVDs.

Why am I so big on using Amazon to get products to market? Oh, let me count the reasons:

1. Going to the traffic is easier than attracting the traffic to you - Amazon has over 66 million active customer accounts.
2. Amazon Pro Merchant accounts have a flat $39.99 monthly fee to list as many items as you want (in contrast to eBay’s per listing fees).
3. An automatic $3.99 shipping credit on all orders for standard shipping (higher for expedited shipping).
4. Low per-transaction charges: Amazon collects a commission (15% maximum) and a variable closing fee dependent upon your item category (complete list of Amazon fees).
5. Integrated credit card processing, shopping cart, etc.
6. Extensive reporting capability.
7. Volume listing tools and pretty good inventory management systems.

For these reasons and more, I absolutely love Amazon as a selling platform. I look forward to working with many of you in the future to help you build your own Amazon business.

Until next time,

Jassen Bowman