Two Easy Guides

Starting a work from home online business today could be your smartest move. With the shaky economy today it’s good to have a backup income.

You might be shocked to know just how many people today are starting an online business to help make ends meet.

Little To No Cost Start-Up

The thing is it’s so much easier to start a business today because you can do it from the comfort of your home, even in your spare time. You don’t need to stock inventory and you don’t need any more space than it take for your laptop or computer. I started on the coffee table in our little apartment. Since then we’ve bought a home and I have my own home office.

One huge factor I love about working from home is that age isn’t really an issue because you’re the boss. I am sixty now and never have to worry about being turned down for a job ever again. And to make it even better I can promote and sell only the things I would like to.

People In All Walks of Life

Yes, people in every country and most any field are feeling the pinch and many are starting work from home businesses, mostly out of fear for their futures. I have friends who work in call centers and live in cubicles all day long and they are thinking about starting an online business like I have done.

The world is full of baby boomers like myself who are hitting unsecured futures and retirements. Their years of experience gives them all the ammo they need to make money online with a work from home business.

It just takes a bit of learning so you’re not spinning your wheels without making money.

Two Easy Guides To Making Money Online

I don’t want to make you think a work from home business is a way to get rich quickly. That’s just not going to happen yet there are many claiming it still happens every day. Avoid those people at all costs or it will surely cost you.

What you really need to succeed online is to learn about affiliate marketing, which is selling other people’s products. Trust me it you are not likely to make money without learn how to make money first. I gave that a try and all I did was spend money, until I read a great little affiliate marketing guide that showed me the way.

I would also get used to Clickbank.com because you will find a lot of quality digital books known as ebooks or electronic books. I try to have at least two ebooks to promote for every niche I work from home.

I use WordPress blogs on my own domains so that I have full control over my content. I did try a couple of free blogging platforms at first but soon found I didn’t always have control over my own blog and from that point on only have blogs on my own domains.

I remember growing up wishing I could make money with my hobbies but that never happened until I had access to the Internet. Even then I was told to steer clear of hobby based sites and I believed them because they claimed to be Internet marketing gurus.

Now you could say I’ve turned my hobbies into a full time career as a work from home marketer. The thing is if you are really passionate about pretty much anything today it’s a way to make money. Just be sure you do the proper niche and keyword research so you can make money with affiliate marketing like I do.

My hobbies, which include home gardening tips, how to play acoustic guitar, the joy of fishing, just to mention a few, are now making me money day after day. Now, instead of struggling with niche markets I’m not very knowledgeable about I can talk all day long about my hobbies and like-minded people become my visitors and bread and butter.

Other money making hobbies I’ve seen are those focused around painting like one of my fishing buddies. Perhaps you’re into knitting and quilting. My younger brother is into stamp collecting which he learned from our grandfather.

How Much Do You Invest In Your Hobbies

Do you spend much money on your hobby or hobbies? If the answer is no then perhaps it’s not the niche to start with. For example, I spend a lot of money each year on fishing and gardening as many friends I have do. Now I make more money than I spend.

I have friends who spend more on their boats than I spend on both fishing, gardening and guitars. They also know everything about their boat and motor. I wouldn’t go with that niche or market though, even though there is big money, because I am not nearly knowledgeable enough to make money in that niche.

Now if I were to partner up with a few of my friends with all that boat knowledge I could make some great income but they are not into marketing, just boating and fishing. I have learned enough to know it’s not a niche for me and will stick with my hobbies.

Travel As A Hobby

It’s great to have hobbies that include the entire family but really the only thing my family likes to do together is travel. This led me to start a local travel blog for New Brunswick. The more we travel the more we blog and the more we make from my travel New Brunswick blog.

What I love about hobbies is the fact I can go out for a day of fishing with friends and then just share the entire experience with my fishing blog readers. I use affiliate marketing which I learned from Rosalind Gardner’s Super Affiliate Handbook to make money.

It’s really hard for a fishing fanatic like myself to learn about a fishing lure that catches more big fish in the weeds without getting caught up and not buy it. So when other fishing nuts read my blog they have to buy it too. Then I get to buy even more fishing gear.

Making Money With Paid Links

I love making money with affiliate marketing but I also make money from people who request a link back to their site from a blog post or my blogroll. Note that this doesn’t usually happen until your site has gain popularity and getting a lot of traffic.

Make Money With Google Adsense

Once I have my niche site up and running with some quality content I add Google Adsense to the mix and start making a little extra income from those who follow the Adsense links.

It’s really a combination of advertising methods and not necessarily one thing that does the trick for me. I make money with affiliate marketing, most of my income comes from affiliate marketing but I make some pretty good money with paid links and they get renewed so I make money year after year.

So, my advice to marketing newbies is to go with something you love. The reason this works so well for me is due to the content I can create. I don’t usually get writers block as I live my hobbies and talk all day long. Do take the time to learn about affiliate marketing from the Super Affiliate Handbook. I also use Keyword Elite 2 as my keyword research tool so I know I am using the keywords I can make money with.

Affiliate marketing is the act of promoting and selling products or services for a commission which belong to other people.

For me this really rocks as I don’t have products of my own but I work in a dozen or more niches. I would never want to create products and stock inventory for these so using other people’s products works for me.

I’m a work from home blogger living in Canada’s picture province, New Brunswick but really it doesn’t matter much where you live as long as you have Internet access and you don’t mind working for your income.

Affiliate Marketing Does Require Work

You should know as a new affiliate marketer. You definitely don’t want to start making websites and blogs that just show product after product without being accompanied by quality content that will help your visitors make a decision to purchase from your site.

Many have tried this and failed. People don’t want to go to a product site that doesn’t give detailed information about the products they are looking for. If their search lands them on your site you better be prepared to keep them on your site as they are unlikely to ever return if they leave your page due to lack of quality and content.

When I go to an affiliate page I have expectations, as do many other, and if you don’t meet them I won’t be likely to purchase from you. The thing is there are plenty of sites that do have quality and informative content and I don’t mind searching for them.

Take Time To Learn Affiliate Marketing

I’ve said this so many times but it always bares repeating.

The money I earn regularly didn’t happen for a long time, not until I was willing to take the time to learn what I was doing wrong in my affiliate marketing and corrected it.

So glad I didn’t give up like some of my friends who tried to make money online. A friend, Bob, pointed me to the best affiliate marketing ebook.

I had already heard of Rosalind Gardner’s Super Affiliate Handbook but didn’t bother even looking into it because I thought I knew how to make money. What a difference a couple of hours and the right affiliate marketing book has made to my bottom-line. Thanks Bob.

A few of my sites had to be started over, that’s how far off the mark I was but fortunately most of my sites just needed a better focus and a few SEO changes to make them start producing.

Finding Affiliate Products For Your Sites

There is no limit to what you can promote these days as there are affiliate products in any niche you can think of. I see sites where affiliate marketers are promoting the strangest things, even airplanes. For me, well I kinda stick to simple hobbies like fly fishing and tying to home gardening and playing acoustic guitar.

Use Amazon.com to find niches that work for you. Then you can use them to find products you can promote that will make you money.

The Clickbank marketplace is a site I spend a lot of time on because I love promoting digital products and is actually where I got my copy of the Super Affiliate Handbook.

Affiliate networks are available for most products, just go to Google and type in your niche and affiliate network or products and you will find these place. Two of my favourites for many products I sell has to be LinkShare and Commission Junction. I use these networks when I’m looking for physical products that match my fishing, home gardening and other niche websites.

Making Affiliate Marketing Easier And Faster

I use a few paid tools that have allowed me to start blogs and websites in new niches as well as to find the keywords I can make money with through affiliate marketing. The first program I purchased for this is Keyword Elite 2 which saves me so much time and time is money. The second program I purchased was Micro Niche Finder.

As a work at home marketer here in Moncton I love to blog, in a variety of niches and for that reason I have numerous blogs.

I started blogging just to share my experiences with like minded people but soon learned I could make some extra money at the same time and that’s when I started to blog for profit.

I also learned that not everyone is truthful in this business and fell on my face a few times. Rather than give up like a few of my friends have done I just got more determined to figure out how to make money blogging, just more efficiently.

Here is a brief example of the step by step tips I use to find the right niche and start making money from home.

The First Step Is To Find YOYR Best Niche

By far picking the wrong niche has to be the biggest blunder most newbies make, myself included. It’s just seems natural to pick a niche where one thinks the money is without thinking about how one will earn that income. This is why the make money niche has so many not making money in the niche.

It took me a long while but I finally started to clue into the fact that I might have messed up and even longer to accepted it and move on to a niche I could actually make some money in which took some research before I got it right.

You can learn more here: How to find YOUR profitable niche.

The Next Step – The Best Keywords For ME?

So the first mistake is usually picking the wrong niche but once that is realized and your focus changes then there’s a new mistake that comes into view and that’s going with the top money making keywords for that niche.

Many more months and wasted time passes before they are willing to admit something else is wrong.

I took some time learning that the top keywords could take me months and even years to rank for enough to get the money making traffic but I learned. That was the time I purchased Keyword Elite 2 and started doing the right kind of keyword research. KE2 is an investment that will help you make money sooner.

Next Step – Buy A Domain That’s Keyworded

Now that you have a powerful research tool on your side it’s time to buy a domain name that uses your best keyword phrase as it can make the difference between getting the search engine position that makes money and not.

So you have invested your time and maybe some money to find YOUR best keywords so the next step is to buy a keyworded domain for your work from home business. There are few things you should know about having a keyworded domain. For my domain purchased I use GoDaddy.com and have never been disappointed.

The Next Step Is Hosting Your New Domain

I tried a few hosting services over the years and eventually found HostGator.com. They have great tech support which I have used many times as I tend to mess things up from time to time. They use cPanel as the control panel for my account plus they have Fantastico which allows me to quickly and easily install WordPress, my favourite blogging platform.

Note: I don’t really care for the default themes for WordPress as they are generic and not all that well optimized for search engines, so I prefer to find better ones. Here is a great site to find great paid themes that have been optimized.

Your Final Step – Learn Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is where I make most of my money but it wasn’t always like that. I didn’t really have a clue about affiliate marketing, although I thought I knew enough to earn but I didn’t. Fortunately for me I met a new friend online who pointed me to the best affiliate training ebook I had read.

Using the Super Affiliate Handbook I immediately saw so many places I had gone wrong and started correcting and making money.

I trust the 5 step by step tips will help you get on the right path so you can become that work from home marketer you thought you could be.

You’ve decided to take the leap and start your own work at home business with a side order of making money. I started my work from home business with the same idea back in 2001.

Today we have hundreds and hundreds of people with the same idea but the truth of the matter is only a few get it right while the others are left struggling.

I made a lot of mistakes when I started because I thought it was going to be easy and I’d be making money in a week or so. I could not have been further off track.

The only difference between myself and those who gave up after a short time is my stubbornness I guess. I knew there was money to be made and wasn’t giving up until I found out how to make some of it for myself. It’s a bit embarrassing but it took me over two years before I was making money on a regular basis.

It really wasn’t until I was shown the right affiliate marketing eBook that I saw where I had been messing up for so long. Taking the time or should I say investing the time learning affiliate marketing and how to make it work changed my business life and even my family life as I had more time to spend with them.

I Purchased A Copy of The Super Affiliate Handbook

A guy I had met online, a fellow marketer, came to me for some web design help and we became good friends. It was Bob who pointed me in the right direction for affiliate marketing help. He was already making about $100/day using affiliate marketing tactics and I was willing to listen.

Bob actually called me on the phone to share some info about Rosalind Gardener, who I never heard of. She wrote the Super Affiliate Handbook and it was about to change my life and I didn’t even know it. NOTE: Bob didn’t give me an affiliate link and wasn’t trying to make money from me. I like friends like that.

About two days later I bought the Super Affiliate Handbook and started reading. I read rather slowly and have to read things more than once for them to sink in but right away I was seeing and learning things I had been doing entirely wrong and that was on my first reading. I was super impressed.

Today I Recommend The Super Affiliate Handbook

I don’t recommend things lightly as my reputation is always on the line when I recommend things and I stay as honest as I can as I like to keep friends. So I bought a copy of the Super Affiliate Handbook and went through it cover to cover at least twice and still reference it anytime I’m in a fog about something affiliate marketing related.

I have been a work at home marketer since 2001 and have read and sold a lot of ebooks. I’ve even written a few of my own in that time but much prefer selling other people’s products.

I have also helped others get started with their own work from home business and they’ve purchased ebooks from my site to learn more about how to make money with other people’s products, aka affiliate marketing. I like to recommend the Super Affiliate Handbook by Rosalind Gardner, she’s the best.

Selling Other People’s Products

At it’s simplest affiliate marketing is selling other people’s products or services for a commission. There are hundreds of thousands of products that can be promoted through affiliate marketing but that’s another post, today it’s all about ebooks with resell rights from places like Clickbank and the Clickbank marketplace.

What I really love about affiliate marketing ebooks is that I don’t have to write them myself, heck I don’t even need to own them. Other people write them, make them available through Clickbank and I sell them from my work from home blog.

I resell ebooks from every niche I market to because there are always people writing ebooks about every niche imaginable.

Knowing you can make money reselling ebooks is one thing but actually working with affiliate marketing is another and is why I recommend Rosalind Super Affiliate Handbook. Her ebook will teach you the ropes of affiliate marketing and is the best affiliate marketing handbook I’ve ever read.

Smart Marketers Purchase The Ebooks They Sell

Purchasing a product and writing a quality review giving both pros and cons is the best way to sell products. I’ve seen lots of sites that just list ebook names and maybe a picture a price and a link and then wonder why they don’t make money.

When you think of it people aren’t coming to your site to see lists of books. When I visit your site after finding you in a search engine I am looking for articles that will sell me on the product. So when I see you only listed the ebooks and price I just leave and likely never to return.

Let them know why you bought the ebook. What sold you? How did it help you? What didn’t you like about the ebook?

Ebooks are perfect products to sell as far as I’m concerned. I work from home as a blogger so the fact I don’t have to stock any inventory works for me.

I started making some money using Google Adsense, it just wasn’t right away. Before I started to make any amount of money I had to do some learning so I jumped over to the Clickbank marketplace and found two easy guides to learning Google Adsense.

I work from home and I’m self taught, so I have made a lot of mistakes getting where I am today. I have stumbled around far too often, not really knowing what I was doing and most often it cost me money.

The concept of Google Adsense is pretty cool. Just place a few Adsense ads, no more than three I believe, on your site and watch the money roll in. Okay the concept is great but trust me the money won’t come rolling in if you don’t learn how to make your site and Adsense work together with your traffic.

Note: I don’t make a lot of money with Google Adsense but they are not the only method I use to make money online. The fact is with blogging today every avenue you use to make money and every penny you earn, counts.

Where To Start With Using Google Adsense

For me it all started with having my own domains I purchased at GoDaddy.com and hosted with HostGator.com. It’s quite affordable and you have full control of your site. The cost for each domain I have is about $10.00 a year to register them and as for hosting I pay less than $10.00 a month and host multiple domains in that one account.

One of the reasons I love blogs is because search engines like Google love them to as they usually get updated regularly but I also them because they use cPanel which I’ve always used for my domain’s control panel.

HostGator.com has been there when I have needed them and that’s important to my work from home business as I’m not a techie by any stretch of the imagination.

The fact they use Fantastico which helps me easily install WordPress blogs is just another bonus in my books.

cPanel and Fantastico have become a standard so you will find lots of videos to help you learn both so you get the most from your domain. Once you are in cPanel you will be able to see all the icons. Once you know the icon names you can find Youtube videos to show you how to use each item.

Use WordPress Sitemap And SEO Plugins

Making money with Google Adsense works best when you are right on target with your niche which takes keyword rich content for your blogs. If your content isn’t relevant to your niche you may get traffic but unlike to get any clicks.

I use the All-in-One SEO WordPress plug-in which makes it easier for me to optimize my blog’s title and content. You can also use the Google xml site map plug-in so Google know when you have made changes to your blog.

Placement of Adsense Ad Blocks

Once you have a Google Adsense you will be able to setup ad blocks for your site. I like to have an Adsense skyscraper ad going down my sidebar as it’s visible to my visitors while they read my entire article or blog post.

I also like to place an ad in the top left of my blog post so that visitors can see relevant links I can earn money with. As well I put an image ad block below the header of my blogs.

Because you are only allowed three Google Adsense ads per page that usually covers it for me.

Now that you have your Adsense setup properly it’s just a matter of doing other SEO things that will attract more targeted visitors.

You may have heard that the keywords and phrases in your niche are important. Well it’s true and if you expect to make any money working from home you need to learn how to use your keywords to your advantage.

The first thing you need to understand is just how important your keyword choices are and why you need them.

Keywords Are Key To Marketing Success

Even if you are not aware of keywords you are using them if you have a blog or website that is in anyway niche related. So, if you are a fisher like myself and talk about all things fishing you will have words that search engines see as key to your content.

This doesn’t mean you have done a good job. If you are not getting target traffic to your site it most often means you are either using keywords you can not rank for or you are using words and phrases that are not niche related. Sound a bit confusing, well it doesn’t have to be once you understand the importance of keyword focus.

Example: I have a few fishing related sites where I am looking to attract a target group of people like myself who love fishing. For this reason, even if I want to talk about how much I love my truck I need to include it in an article about fishing or the search engine may see my article as non related and send me non targeted visitors.

Keep Relevant to Your Niche

So it’s okay to say how much you love your new ‘brand name’ truck but keep your niche focus at the same time. I find my truck hauls my bass boat as if it wasn’t even there and gets me on to my honey hole that much quicker.

Your keywords and phrases are the words you expect interested parties to type into a search engine where you want them to find your site listed at the top. Using non relevant keywords will only put your site further down the listings or you will be listed for the wrong phrases which nets you the wrong target group and no money is made.

To get this right in-depth niche and keyword research needs to be conducted. This process is very time consuming if you are using the free tools available. However you can get the hard work done with much less time and stress using tools such as Keyword Elite 2 or Micro Niche Finder.

I do a lot of affiliate marketing today but I didn’t always make money online because I was not skilled enough as an affiliate marketing, not until I learned about the Super Affiliate Handbook from Rosalind Gardner, who taught me so much. She starts right from the beginning and takes you all the way to the bank. The Clickbank marketplace has been a great resource for finding ebooks that help me do better and make more money working from home.

I’ve had some big dreams over the years that never panned out but it would have been nice to have been a fishing guide like my brother was for years. I’ve also tried many network marketing plans which gave us big dreams but those were dreams.

Then I had one more dream which did come true and that was being able to work from home using the Internet to make money. Starting part time is a great way to learn how to make money from home using affiliate marketing while sucking back coffee straight from the kitchen.

Of course what I like most about working at home and marketing affiliate products and services is that hours. I can set my own hours and not worry about the commute to an office outside the home, which was always a pain, no matter the distance.

It’s was so nice to cut up my ties, once and for all.

Learn How To Research For Affiliate Products

When I was selling computers back in the 80s I made the most money because I learned all about the products I was selling. Why would people want to buy them. I put in a lot of time learning what people wanted and to have answers to any questions they might ask but more than that I learned what the computers could do for them.

Learning what affiliate products will make money is important as not all things are going to have the numbers for an affiliate marketing to earn enough to make it worth their while, but you would only know that after you have researched or after you learn from months of no earning, the choice is always yours.

So finding a niche that has money in it is a rather important first step wouldn’t you say?

As part of your research you need to find the competition factor for a niche and of course affiliate products in that niche. If there is no competition the product is either brand new or perhaps it has no competition because it sucks. You need to learn this before promoting products that wouldn’t make you any income.

Hobbies And Affiliate Products

Really any one with the desire to work from home to make money should be considering affiliate marketing. I have a number of hobbies I blog about and all of my blogs promote relevant affiliate products. It’s how I make my living working from home full time.

Part of what I offer my visitors are ebooks or digital products they can read to learn more about whatever I am sharing within my blogs. But I also promote physical products, for example my fishing blogs talk a lot about the lures and gear I use on my days of fishing so I promote the products I use to catch more fish. My readers are most interested in how to catch bigger fish and more fish.

I stick with promoting things I actually use, most of the time, as it gives me hands on information I can share with my visitors and that sells. However in the sport fishing niche I talk a lot about bass fishing and that could be a place to promote bass fishing boats which can turn a nice commission.

There are plenty of ebooks that will teach you how to make money with affiliate marketing and I have tried a few and found that not all ebooks are equal. I made a number of refund requests but then I found the Super Affiliate Handbook by Rosalind Gardner and my search was over. She has taught me step by step affiliate marketing and is the queen of affiliate marketing.

Writing an ebook can be a great way to work from home and make money online, even in your spare time. You just need to come up with an idea for your ebook and you’re ready to start learning how to write an ebook for success.

When I talk to my friends and other would be marketers about writing an ebook to share the knowledge they have they either laugh out loud or start giving excusing why they can’t do that.

Don’t sell yourself short by convincing yourself you have nothing worth sharing. Start thinking about your hobbies and interests. Keep a pen and paper on your person at all times, especially when you are out of the house. Ideas pop into my head all the time and if I don’t write them down I forget them all together.

Try Brainstorming Ideas

For a good brainstorming session I like to have people to bounce ideas back and forth but when I am alone I like to go to magazine site or maybe head over to Chapters. This way I can look through sections I have interests and hobbies in. It’s a great way to get my brain in gear plus it usually gives me lots of ideas.

Ebooks don’t have to be 100 pages or more. Heck a short 10 page report can say a lot.

I take my pen and notepad with me when I take my walks every few days. My mind is always wandering as do my eyes and I see things that trigger thoughts that lead to ideas which can lead to another how to ebook.

Check The Web For Interest Levels

Once I have an idea or two I like to check online to see what demand there is for my idea. While I am looking at sites on the subject I check to see what keywords they are using. For this I have a paid tool which is called Keyword Elite 2. KE saves me hours of hard research.

The keywords I find and what I learn from the relevant sites I find using Keyword Elite helps me to cover what people are expecting in an ebook. I also use the keywords I find to write article that will promote my new ebook. So even if you have the ideas and knowledge it’s important to find the right keywords for the best results.

Once I have my ebook written I then create the ebook as a PDF as Adobe Reader has been the most used reader for years now.

To learn more about how to write an ebook you can checkout these two easy guides I located on Clickbank. 1) How To Write A How To Ebook and 2) How To Write An Ebook in 7 Days.