Archive for make money online

Do People Really Make Money Online?

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

I got this question yesterday and asked Adrian if he was ok with me posting to my blog. I love getting questions like this because it makes me reflect on what I’ve accomplished and it also helps me understand what my subscribers and readers are feeling challenged by.

Here’s my answer to the question: Do People Really Make Money Online?

Hey Angela:

I guess i am a bit skeptical. Do people really make money online.
I was reading an article about CPA networks and was wondering if you have ever come accross CPA network. I am thinking of starting an online business but not sure where to start and if it can replace my income eventually.

Thanks,
adrian

Hi Adrian,

Thanks so much for your email and for trusting me with that question.

I answered your question below and it turned into quite the article. Do you mind if I post your question along with your first name on my site? I plan on posting my answer but it would be great to post the question too – then when you start your business come back and remind me so I can update the page with your website link ;)

Please let me know.

Here’s my answer:

I know it is hard to believe for some. Actually my parents still don’t really believe it even though I’ve worked from home full time myself now for over three years.

Here’s what I can tell you:

My first year I made $18,000 while working full time at a job the first half the year.
My second year I made about $35,000
In my third year I made some major changes to my business and basicly took half the year off and still made about $16,000.

Now these aren’t million dollar or even six figure quotes of fame and fortune. Could I have made more? Absolutely. I flip-flopped from business model to business model, basically trying out a lot of different things – I had no focus!

But I was also learning how to run a business while I earned, which isn’t something that everyone has a natural talent to do. I consider my first three years my ‘paid schooling’. Not bad considering I got paid over $60,000 to go to school.

I can also tell you there are many, many ways to make money online. In those first three years I would say I flip flopped from idea to idea, making a bit here and there. Here are just some of the things I did to make money:

- Virtual Assistant business: This involved building websites, doing site updates, writing articles, editing content, submitting to website directories and just about anything an online business owner asked me to do.

- Article Services: I bought a website for $500 that served clients who needed original articles written. That site made me a profit of about $1000 per month. I kept it for about a year and then decided to sell it for $3000 which was actually way under value and still made six times what I originally paid. I actually consider selling that site one of my biggest mistakes and I’m thinking of starting one up again.

- Information Products: I’ve written a number of information products on topics ranging from how I started my virtual assistant business, how to start an affiliate program, how to set up and run teleseminars and my latest is about how to set up and run virtual events.

affiliate marketing- Affiliate Sales: As an affiliate for other people’s products I have made thousands of dollars, won an ipod and a cash bonus. What I do is make recommendations for quality products and then when someone takes that recommendation I make a referral fee. There’s more information on how that works here:
http://www.marketersmojo.com/freebies/beginners-guides/affiliate-marketing/

- Coaching Programs: I’ve set up programs where I’ve coached clients on various topics including how to be an affiliate manager, how to set up teleseminars and my latest is on how to create your own website. You might be interested in checking that out as it covers so much more than just putting up websites, it’s also about the research, the content, the marketing and the metrics:
http://www.websitedesignmojo.com

- Website Design: I currently have a website design business where I also create sites for clients. I charge $300 upwards of $3000 for various services and get new clients on a regular basis. If you want to peek that’s here:
http://www.blogsitemojo.com

So as you can see there are quite a few ways to make money online. Of course there are even more than I’ve listed, including CPA which you mentioned. I haven’t any experience with CPA but from what I understand of it, it’s very legitimate. CPA stands for cost per acquisition and from what I’ve seen it’s something a lot of the larger companies offer as an ‘affiliate program’. Basically you are getting paid to get someone to sign up for a free offer, of a free product, etc.

For example – I know of a very successful affiliate marketer in the ‘online dating’ niche. She has ads on her site that get people to sign up for a free compatibility test. It costs nothing and she gets paid for the sign up, the acquisition. Companies do this because they know how much each sign up is worth. They figure this out by realizing that for every 100 customers, X number of customers will buy. So, if they get 5 sales out of every 100 sign ups they can afford to pay out a percentage of that so they have access to more leads then they can get themselves.

I hope that helps!

Angela Wills
Angela Wills

p.s.At the time this post goes out there will be just 5 1/2 hours until the ‘fast movers’ discount of $100 is valid for Website Design Mojo. If you are ready to build an online business and learn a skill that will never go out of style then check out the coaching program that teaches you website design from the inside out:
http://www.websitedesignmojo.com

Can You Really Make Money Online – Is This a Scam?

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

working moms extra moneyYou know I kinda feel like I live in a safe secure online bubble.

Really. I’ve never worried about getting scammed online.

Maybe that’s naive, or maybe it’s because from the beginning I was lucky enough to find the best online support group for work at home moms ever.

I mean I found Alice Seba herself at Internet Based Moms within the first week or two of starting my first real business on the internet – talk about luck!

Today I got a call from a lady who was concerned about just that, getting scammed by a scammer on the internet. She was wondering if there was any truth to making money online. I feel honored that a total stranger who was feeling lost and pretty Read More→

Comments (0)

Angela, What Do You Do?

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Business Woman Working at Home on CouchLately I am getting the question “Angela, What do you do?” on a fairly regular basis. So, I thought I should write a post on it.

The straight to the point, short version of what I do:
I help small business owners make money online.

How do I do that?

Well, I wrote a post back a few months ago called ‘How I Make Money Online’ and it does Read More→


MP3 File

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Vicki Pinkerton

I’m so inspired by my guest this week, Vicki Pinkerton. Vicki is fulfilling a lifelong dream to just head out and explore our (mine and her’s) vast country. Vicki’s Quest Across Canada is not just about business, it’s about daring to dream and doing. That’s really cool! I hope you’ll enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed our talk.

Vicki’s Sites:
www.QuestAcrossCanada.com
www.LifelinesCoaching.org

How I Make Money Online

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

The other day on twitter @tuttih asked me to let her know how I make money online and tell her if it’s really possible.

tuttih

Great Question!

So instead of sending off a short message I told her I’d spend some time to do up a blog post and let her know when it’s ready because I thought my show listeners, blog readers and email subscribers would like to hear about this as well.

So let me summarize it, here’s how I make money online:

Business Services

What I Do – Over the last three years I’ve provided services to small business owners as a Virtual Assistant. I put the years of experience I had building websites, studying online marketing and learning how to make sales to good use and started helping people do the same

As a virtual assistant I have done many things: affiliate management, website design, website editing, writing, article submissions, email marketing, audio editing, blog design and more.

Most recently I have decided it’s time to really transition out of the ‘virtual assistant’ business and into a full time internet marketer. That’s why I now only provide Blog Design services through my site BlogSiteMojo.com.

For any other services such as affiliate management or online marketing I will work with a very select few clients.

How I Get Paid – Well for VA services I would get paid hourly at $45 per hour. A new VA starting out usually charges between $20-$30 per hour depending on experience. For blog design, we charge a flat rate of $595 for a full blog install, SEO setup and customization.

Information Product Sales

What I Do – I’ve written a number of information products based on my own online business marketing expertise and sell those for $47 each. So far I offer a product on Affiliate Management, Teleseminars and Virtual Assistance.

My Affiliate Management product has been the most popular by far this point and it is also the one I’ve spent the most time promoting. I’ve spent the last year or so building my reputation as an Affiliate Manager and an affiliate management trainer.

How I Get Paid – My information products are set up through the automation of an online shopping cart. The cart I use now is WAHMCart, which I just switched back to after using 1 Shopping Cart for a short period of time.

The shopping cart is connected up to Paypal so anytime someone wants to buy my product they simply click the ‘buy now’ link and get their product automatically. I also automatically get the payment in my Paypal account.

Affiliate Marketing

What I Do – As an Affiliate Manager it’s important that I understand affiliate marketing from both sides; as the company who runs an affiliate program and as the marketer who’s promoting products to earn a commission.

(sidenote – If you don’t know what affiliate marketing is here is a short definition: An affiliate is someone who promotes a product online using a specially coded ‘affiliate link’ that tracks sales and credits the affiliate who earns a set amount of money which is usually per sale)

How I promote products is through a number of venues:

  • I include affiliate links in my own products.
  • I do case studies and reviews on my blog as well as make recommendations when it suits the blog post.
  • I make personal recommendations to people I work with.
  • I let my list know when I find amazing resources.

I’ll also note it’s very important to me that I’ve used the products or know with great certainty that the person created them only creates quality. I won’t recommend crap just to make a few bucks.

Some of my favorites to promote:

Notice almost all of the above are recurring programs?? That’s not an accident! Promote once and continue to get paid. All of the programs above I have used and love.

Here’s a few screenshots of the four day case study I did promoting Traffic Geyser that made me over $500 in commissions PLUS won me an iPod Nano in their affiliate contest:

traffic-geyser1

And here’s the screenshot of the commissions earned to date for that work:

commish

Here’s a video clip of a presentation I did on Affiliate Marketing at the Toronto Internet Marketing Seminar. You’ll notice in the video I mention that I made $200 and something dollars but the screenshot above says $513 – that’s because since then I’ve made more commissions without having to do anything else to earn it!:

How I Get Paid - When a sale is made I get the affiliate credit. Then typically once per month I get payment into my Paypal account or I’ll get a cheque in the mail.

I made a scan of the first income I EVER made in affiliate marketing, it was such a thrill. The cheque below is from sometime in 2006 I think, and it’s from Aweber:

scan0001

Coaching & Training Services

What I Do – I also provide training and coaching services to business owners who want to learn more about marketing online.

My most popular type of training to date has also been Affiliate Management. An example of this is my upcoming Affiliate Manager Training School and the free preview training session.

How I Get Paid – The coaching programs are also on an automated payment system through WAHMCart. When someone wants to join my coaching program they make their payment (in the case of my upcoming session it is $297 each) and it signs them up automatically and puts the money into my Paypal account.

So that’s how I make money online!

There are so many ways to make money and these are the ways I’m currently focusing on.

tuttih wanted to know if it is possible to really make money online – Yes, absolutely!

My advice to anyone who doesn’t know what they want to do is start with themselves. Don’t go looking for all the things you can do because the options are limitless. Start thinking about what you really enjoy and what you can do long term.

And of course I also would advise you to find mentors who are doing what you want to do and learn from them!

Quite a while ago Lynn Terry made a post of the same name, How I Make Money Online, I recommend you check her post out too – it’s excellent!

(wow! I just looked and realized the post was written in October of 2007, feels like just yesterday that I read that one.)

I’d love to see more marketers break down where they make money online, it’s definitely something that is different for every person so it would be really neat to see a bunch of them to compare notes.

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