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There are easy ways and hard ways to make money online. I don’t know why anyone would ever want to make money the hard way but some people do. Fortunately, I like to make it the easy way and that’s what I’m going to teach you how to do today.

Once you make money or know how to make money – it’s easy. When making money online is nothing more than a dream or still difficult – then it’s hard (obviously!).

We all have different goals so I don’t want to tell you to quit your job and earn money online full-time and I don’t want you to have unrealistic goals about making $100K with little or no work. Making money online takes time but in the long run, it can be really rewarding.
The Benefits of Making Money Online

• Passive income
• Limitless earning potential
• You can make money doing something you enjoy (not always but hopefully!)

The Cons of Making Money Online

• Competition
• It takes work
• It’s not super easy and lots of people lose patience

What You Need to Do To Earn Your First Dollar

There are certain things that you must do in order to earn your first dollar online. It won’t happen if you don’t do the following things (see below).

My biggest and most important tip to you is to not stress out or be impatient. You are building something special here. We’re not trying to make a quick buck but a buck that will turn into thousands (maybe millions) of dollars. So you want to do things right.

#1: You need people to go to your website.

How are you planning to get people to come to your website? The larger the audience you have, the more chances you have to make more money. Here are some of the best ways to get traffic to your site.

• Direct links
• Google search / ranking
• Social media sharing
• Referrals
• Marketing campaigns / Promotions
• Guest blogging (I am not a fan of guest blogging. It seems spamming to me and the old way to SEO).

Direct links is fine but personally, I think organic search is the best because you can get a lot of random people that you don’t know to come to your site. So let google and other search engines work for you.

#2: You want to offer people value to stay on your site

It’s important to give people want they want and then something more. When you do this, you’re going above and beyond what your visitors expect and this will really help you in the long run.

When your audience knows you care, they’ll start caring about you.

When I first started blogging and working on my own sites, I thought that having a lot of content was the most important thing. Then I thought having a lot of content and putting it out really quickly was a priority. But I somehow forgot how important about the quality of the content and how this is really #1.

Whatever service you’re providing or content you’re writing, make sure you think about it from the perspective of your visitor.

• Is your content worth reading?
• Is it worth sharing?
• Is it worth coming back to?

If the answer is no to any of these, then start over. Same goes with your products. Are they better than what’s out there? Are they worth the money you’re charging? Will people tell their friends about it?

When you care about what you’re putting on your site, the value will be there. People will see that you care not only about your business but also about the people that come to your website. So make sure you’re always offering value first. This is how you will make people want to do business with you and ultimately help you make money online.

#3: You want to be seen as an authority

I like to tell people that are just entering the world of making money online to get really focused. By that I mean – you want to be known for something.

Don’t be a buffet and offer everything and anything. Just pick something you’re interested in or know well and start with that.

After you build your audience it’s easier to move into a variety of category/topics/services/products. But in the beginning, you want to be focused.

That’s why I recommend researching keywords or phrases for you to focus on for content marketing (SEO purposes). If you are all over the place talking about whatever you want and not focused on being really good at one thing then you won’t really be known for anything.

You want to be an authority in your niche or sector. You want people to say go to your website when people think about your topic. So focus, focus, focus! You can make a lot of money if you’re focused because people will go to you as their #1 source. But if you have no focus and no real direction for your website then you might as well stop wasting your time or just do this as a hobby.

I’m going to provide you with a guide on how to become an authority and put it in an ebook format. Be on the look out for that 🙂

#4: You want to build trust

Trust is key to not just making money but retaining your visitors. If you asked me what the goal of your website should be, I would tell you “to give your visitors what they want.”

And by that I mean, answer their problems/questions with a solution (your content, services, products). I would you that your goal should be to make money. That will come naturally if you have amazing products/services/content.

I honestly believe if you add value and show you care about your visitors, they will more than willingly help you make money. And lots of it.

Don’t make your site all about business. 

This is why I recommend having a blog on your website, even if you don’t want to be a blogger. It gives you a chance to get personal or get in touch with your visitors so that you can build a relationship with them.

Try to help them. Solve their problems. Make their lives easier. Give them more than they need. Cover all your bases.

When your audience knows you care about them, they will trust you. They will understand that you’re services or products are worth the price. And the recommendations you make are to help them, not just to make you money.

Don’t be selfish and think about the money before your audience. When you’re in sell mode, you’re going to come off as disingenuous and no one will trust you.

#5: You need to give people the opportunity to make you money

What do you have on your site that will make you money?

You don’t need to spam your visitors with advertisements and links. That’s not a good way to try to make money online. Yes, it will give you more opportunities, but it can also look really messy on your website and also make you look like making money is all you care about.

You want to be subtle about how you make money online and you want to make sure the ways you’re trying to make money online are not only beneficial to you but to your visitors.

There are too many websites that will put anything and everything up that makes money.

You want to tailor your money making strategies to your visitors. If you don’t focus on your visitors, then they will not find any value from your website (same with the ads, affiliate links, and products/services).

With that out of the way, you need to decide how you want to make money online.

The following ways are not exclusive. You can use as many ways as you want to make money online. I just want to reiterate that it’s important to make sure whatever you’re recommending, advertising or selling helps your visitor.

• Advertisements?
• Affiliate links?
• Your own products?
• Do you sell services?

NYC TECH CLUB TIP: Don’t be a dirty car salesman that tries to sell something that you wouldn’t want to use. I only recommend products that I use myself and really believe in. I don’t want to make money off something I don’t use or believe in just to make a couple of dollars. I value the visitors to my site and I understand they have put their trust in me. I hope you will do the same with your own visitors 🙂

#6: You need to make adjustments if necessary (A/B testing)

It’s one thing to put up a bunch of quality intent and also a bunch of ads and opportunities for your visitors to click or purchase something that will make you money but you need to be strategic about it.

If you’re focusing on the wrong web pages on your website or not focusing on your most popular pages then you’ll end up working harder than necessary to make money online.

Not every one of your webpages or products you sell are going to be a hit. So its best to analyze everything quantitatively (the numbers don’t lie).

Know which pages are your post popular and optimize those to give yourself the most opportunities to make money.

Not only should you be providing your visitors the opportunity to click and purchase whatever you’re selling but you also want to use your most popular pages to provide optin/follow opportunities.

#7: Follow-up

Sometimes people don’t buy right away. And sometimes the sale doesn’t come directly from visiting your website.

By this mean I mean, you may make money by referring your visitors to sites, pages, products through links in a newsletter or a social media post. In order to do this, you must have the ability to follow-up with your visitors.

The last thing you want is for your visitor to come to your website and never come back. That’s not fun.

So you need to be able to have a way to follow-up and reconnect with your traffic.

You should never expect to make money each time a new visitor comes to your website. Studies have shown it can take up to seven separate exposures of your site to get your marketing message across to your visitors. This is why I believe it is important to find ways to reconnect with your visitors that have been initially exposed to your website.

Make sure you give your visitors the option to follow you on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and any other social media platform you use (Pinterest, Vine, Linkedin…any and all). If you need help adding these buttons to your wordpress website, you can always install some WordPress plugins to help you install these follow and like buttons on your website.

This is why I also recommend you start collection emails from your visitors using my email optin strategy (coming soon!).

That’s Pretty Much It – Let the Good Times Roll – $

This is a simplified blueprint on how to make money online, specifically your first dollar or dollars. It’s really simple. This is really all you need to do.

• Find a niche market or topic
• Find your audience
• Drive them to your website
• Build a relationship with them
• Give them opportunities to help you make money
• Grow your business

Now, what you need to do is use the tools that I have recommended to help you.

Don’t try to guess or make up stuff on your own. Do what works. And what I’m sharing with you, works!

I know this from my own experience. And I’m sharing it with you for free. I’m pretty sure there are people out there that could charge you money to tell you this stuff (and maybe I’ll make a course in the future), but for now, I’m just going to post this because I want to help you.

• If you want freedom and flexibility to do what you want, when you want.
• If you want to make passive income online or on your website.

Then read this article, over and over again, and do what it says.

Leave a message if you have a comment or question. And definitely leave a comment when you’ve made your first dollar online 🙂

Here’s to making money online!
Jameson

Resources:

• To come soon