About.com will pay you to [...]]]> Do you want to write for audiences on the internet but find the idea of setting-up your own website daunting? If you enjoy writing then the revenue sharing sites listed below will enable you to do what you love and get paid at the same time.

About.com

About.com will pay you to write guides for their website. According to this page, Guides are guaranteed to be paid $675 per month in their first two years, with a minimum of $500 per month afterwards. About.com also offers further incentives for page views. So, if you can attract more visitors to the page you will also receive more money.

You can visit this link to see the type of content that About.com require guides for at the moment.

Hubpages.com

If you are a writer then Hubpages.com will also allow you to earn from your writing. Sign-up to Google Adsense and Amazon Associated Program and then on each page that you write for the site your ads will be shown, meaning that you can make money for your writing without needing to know anything technical like web hosting or setting-up a website.

Hubpages.com also offers an affiliate referral scheme. So for every person who signs-up to the site based on your recommendation you will also receive 10% of their future earnings on the site.

Squidoo.com

Squidoo.com works in a similar way to Hubpages. Each time you write a page (a page is called a “lens” in Squidoo terminology) you will be able to place your own ads or products. Writers can include Google Adsense, Amazon, eBay, Chitika and Etsy ads on their page.

This article written by Squidoo’s Editor in Chief has more information on the types of revenue generation available to writers.

Flixya.com

Flixya allows writers, video makers and photographers to earn money through Google Adsense. You simply need a Google Adsense account and you will make money every time a person clicks on ad in your article.

Xomba.com

xomba.com is another article submission site where you can earn revenue through Google Adsense. Your ads are shown 60% of the time to visitors to your article.

xomba also offer a number of writing tips and resources so your content can be found easier by potential visitors. For more information visit this page.

Bloggerparty.com

BloggerParty.com is another website which offers revenue sharing for its writers. With BloggerParty you’ll have your Google Adsense displayed 50% of the time a visitor lands on your article. If you refer a new user to the site then you can also have your ad displayed 25% of the time on their page.

Triond.com

When you write for Triond your work is published across a network of websites with an existing audience.

As soon as your article goes live on one of the sites you start generating revenue from contextual advertising and display advertising.

Helium.com

Helium offers writers the chance to share their expertise with the world. Writers are paid through incentive payments such as how many visitors your article receives.

Helium writers are also offered the opportunity to earn money through exclusive writing assignments. There are also a number of regular writing contests where you can win prizes based on your work.

Bukisa.com

Bukisa gives writers the opportunity to make money via Google Adsense for writing educational and informative articles. The website was developed by the founders of the popular articles directory www.articlesbase.com

Factoidz.com

Factoidz.com only accept highly-qualified people to become experts on their writing site, however, they do offer excellent upfront bonuses for writers.

Writers can earn leading rates for articles along with an additional $30 in upfront bonuses for anybody writing well-researched content.

Writers also earn money in the form of activity bonuses for every article they write. If that wasn’t enough, writers will also earn based on the number of visitors an article receives.

Writers can see which of their content is making them the most money with factoidz.com real-time analytics. Writers will be able to see how much money each article is earning along with how the community is generally responding to the article and where it ranks in the search engines.

Infobarrel.com

Infobarrel.com is another article writing website that requires you to have a Google Adsense account in order to start making money. Writers will receive 75% of the total visitor impressions to their article page.

Music-nerds.com

Music Nerds is great site if you love writing about music. You can earn money from reviewing your favourite albums.

You earn money from Google Adsense, however, unlike many other sites, the entire earnings from the site are placed into one big pot and divided among writers each month, with those users with more published reviews receiving a higher percentage of the revenue share.

DigitalJournal.com

If you fancy yourself as the next big journalist on the block then you should consider signing-up to news site, Digital Journal. The website has a slightly different model to paying its writers than other sites; ad revenue is put into one big pot and divided between Digital Journalists based on how much he or she contributes, and how much attention their articles receive.

Here is more information on the payment system:

1. Payments are calculated based on both likes and page views
2. Digital Journalists are paid more for news articles than opinion pieces
3. Bonuses are paid for additional reporting and interviews

If you want to hone your craft as a journalist and still make some income then the digitaljournal.com is a fantastic outlet for your writing.

SoftwareJudge

If you know about software and If you have strong opinions, whether positive or negative, then you can get paid for your reviews. SoftwareJudge pay up to 50 dollars for honest and straight-talking software reviews.

If you would like more information on which sites are really worth your time submitting to then sign-up below for a copy of our free report. In the report we will also show you additional ways that you can make money online from your writing.

If this sounds at all familiar then the problem could be that you’ve overlooked an important aspect of SEO – your title tags. Fixing the title tag of a [...]]]> Are you staring at your screen, pulling your hair out and asking aloud, “why isn’t my website showing up on Google for the keywords I want?”

If this sounds at all familiar then the problem could be that you’ve overlooked an important aspect of SEO – your title tags. Fixing the title tag of a website can often result in your website improving its search engine ranking very quickly. This is particularly true if you are not targeting very competitive keywords. Use the keywords you found via our keyword research guide and put the most important keywords at the start of your title tag.

What are title tags?

Title tags are the most important piece of SEO you can implement on your own site. The title tag is used to help determine a webpage’s relevance to a particular topic. All the major search engines, including Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask use the title tag to understand what your webpage is about.

If you use Firefox or Internet Explorer browsers you will be able to see the title tag of your website in the blue bar at the top of the screen (screenshot below):

The title tag is also the linkable text that is shown on most major search engine results pages. A bad title, or no title at all, will mean that users are less compelled to click-through from the search results and visit your website. This means you lose out on interested people coming to your site.

What the most Common title tag mistakes

So what exactly can you do to ensure that more people visit your site because of your title tags? Some of the most common title tag mistakes include:

• Lack of keywords
• Keyword stuffing
• Inaccurate information/lack of relevancy
• Using the same title tag on every page

We’ll look these common issues in more detail. The first thing you need to do is to include the keywords that you want to target in the page’s title tag.

Of course, what this doesn’t mean is that you stuff as many keywords as you can into the title tag. Put yourself in the searcher’s position, if you saw a long list of keywords would you want to click on the link – or would you click on the link that looked like a human wrote it?

You’ll also need to make sure that the keywords in the title tag have some relevance to the copy you have on your page. For example, if you have a page about “Malaysian recipes”, you don’t want your title tag to include the keywords “Chinese recipes” just because during your keyword research phase you found that “Chinese recipes” had more people searching for that term each month.

Your aim with a title tag (and the description under it) is to provide accurate information to a search engine visitor. Often SEO newcomers feel like they need to “trick” the search engine user into visiting their site. Think about it though, if you “trick” a user by providing inaccurate information do you think it is likely they will ever return to your website? Remember, ranking number one on all the major search engines is not the end goal. If you are number one on the search engines yet nobody visits your site because they know it to be untrustworthy then your number one listing is worthless.

Creating compelling copy

So just how do you include keywords into your title tag without making them seem spammy? In your keyword research you will usually find that some of the keywords you wish to target can overlap to form complete sentences. These complete sentences will compel users to click through to your website more than simply having a long list of keywords in your title tag.

Which of these two examples do you think visitors would be more likely to click on?

1) Sitename.com – Credit Card|Balance Transfers|Prepaid Credit Cards

2) The Best Credit Card Deals For Balance Transfers – SiteName.com

Hopefully you said the second example or now I’m just going to look stupid!

The second example has the benefit of actually reading like a real sentence while containing a number of different key phrases. The sentence still contains a number of different keyword phrases, including:

• Best Credit Card Deals For Balance Transfers
• Best Credit Card Deals
• Credit Card Deals
• Balance Transfers
• Credit Card

Spend some time to find overlapping keyword phrases that can be used in a complete sentence.

Top tip: Try to include the most important keywords at the start of the title tag. You can still have your brand/site name in the title, but unless you are a huge established brand then you should move the branded keywords towards the end of the title tag (as seen in example 2 above).

While changing the title tag is unlikely to help your webpage rank higher for competitive keywords like “credit card”, they do help you to rank higher for long-tail phrases and less competitive terms. The title tag continues to be an important factor in helping a website to rank higher in the major search engines and is an important part of an overall SEO campaign.

Keyword research not only tells you which words people are using to reach your site from search engines, it’s also a way of [...]]]> Keyword research is the foundation of any successful website. If you’re looking to make money from advertising or products or from services then it’s essential that the right people find your site.

Keyword research not only tells you which words people are using to reach your site from search engines, it’s also a way of gathering deeper insights into the market you’re in or are planning to enter.

Politicians, copywriters, authors and poets already know how powerful words are. Words have the power to stir our emotions. Words can compel us to fall in love, go to war, to laugh and to cry. Advertisers know that the right words are the difference between millions of people buying a product or it being left on the shelf gathering dust.

Keyword research can be the difference between your site making millions or nothing at all. If you’re targeting the wrong keywords then you’re wasting your time. You could be putting resources into the wrong areas. It’s pointless spending time and money to rank higher in Google, Yahoo and Bing if that keyword isn’t likely to make you any money.

This keyword research guide will give you the knowledge you need to discover what words will be profitable for your website. You’ll learn:

• What keyword tools to use
• How to correctly use different keyword tools
• Why search volume isn’t a good indicator of how profitable a word will be

Keyword research is important whether you plan on using PPC or SEO. This guide is the first page in our series on how to make money online. In the upcoming series you’ll learn how to use your keyword research for Pay Per Click (PPC) and for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Here’s our guide to keyword research and how you can outsmart the competition and make money on the internet.

Table of Contents

Traffic vs Intent

One of the biggest mistakes that people new to internet marketing make is to pay too much attention to search volume and not enough to the intent of the searcher

After all, who cares if 5m people search for a keyword every month if very few people actually buy anything from those searches?

There are three main types of searches conducted by people. These are

Informational – the user is gathering information on a topic or product.
Transactional – the user is searching for a product or service to purchase.
Navigational – the user is searching for a particular website or wants to find content on a website

Of course these days consumers will research for a product before buying so sometimes informational queries do overlap with transactional queries. You just don’t want to fall into the trap of targeting broad keywords that aren’t likely to lead to sales.

If you owned a credit card company, which of these keywords are more likely to lead to sales?

Credit Cards
or
0% balance transfer credit card deals

While you’ll still get some sales for ranking for the “credit card” keyword, the amount of resources it will take to get to the first page of Google simply won’t be cost-effective for your business.

With the term “credit card” people could be looking for information on credit cards, news on credit cards or just generally browsing.

By targeting the more specific term “0% balance transfer credit card deals” you’ll get a much better return on your SEO or PPC investment.

Long Tail vs Short Tail

Keywords can be split into two main groups, short tail keywords and long tail keywords.

Short tail or head terms are usually broad while long-tail keywords are more specific.

The term ‘long tail’ was coined by Chris Anderson and is used to describe the strategy of targeting less-competitive niche markets rather than the hugely competitive broad keywords.

One example of a head term would be “books” while the long tail might be “Name of book + author”, i.e. “Paul Auster New York Trilogy”. While the long-tail keyword won’t be searched for anywhere near as often as the short tail term, the keywords are far more specific and so much more likely to result in a sale. You can think of the broad terms as almost like window shopping. They also suggest that the user is in the very early stages of researching their purchase.

The long-tail keywords are generally used by consumers once they have performed some research into the topic and have an idea about what they want to buy.

Here’s a stat from this fantastic article on long tail keywords

“If search were represented by a tiny lizard with a one-inch head, the tail of that lizard would stretch for 221 miles.”

The statistic above clearly shows how important it is to have a plan in place that doesn’t only target broad head-terms. In order to drill-down and find out which keywords your audience use you will first want to test out some keyword research tools.

Keyword Research Tools

Finding the right keywords for your business doesn’t have to be difficult. To gather vast amounts of user data in the past, you would need to conduct your own expensive market research surveys.

Thanks to the internet, there are now a number of different tools at your disposal that will tell you everything from the amount of people searching for different keywords each month to the keywords that your competition is using to attract visitors to their website.

One mistake that people make is to assume which keywords their customers are likely to use to find out more information on a service or make a purchase on a product.

Arguably the most popular keyword research tool is the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. This tool will provide you with the basic insights and overview of the niche you are targeting.

It is incredibly simple to use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. You can either include some keywords related to your field in the form on the left-hand-side or you can input the name of your domain.

Once the results appear then you will need to select “exact match” on the checkbox on the side. This will give you a far clearer indication of the number of searches that are performed for a particular keyword each month.

Here’s some more info on the different match types and what they mean.

Another free keyword tool offered by Google is Google Insights. Google Insights will give you better insight into the seasonality of keywords. As you can see from this graph, the keyword “pumpkin” peaks at the same time each year because of Halloween

There’s also the helpful option to export the results to a CSV file. You can also see some of the newer searches that are related to this keyword. This will help you to better understand the keyword modifiers that your potential customers are likely to use (more on keyword modifiers in the next section)

If you want to develop a keyword list with a tool other than Google then Wordtracker is a useful option. The free version will only give you 10 or so keywords, but they do offer a 7 day free trial. It is a useful service, with the caveat that it only has search volumes from smaller “meta search engines” like Dogpile. So you won’t be able to find detailed information about search volumes, but you may get some useful ideas from it.

Armed with just a few tools you’ll be able to gain a far greater insight into which keywords that your customers are likely to use.

If you need some more keyword tools then check out this list here.

Keyword Modifiers

This is a good chance to find out which keyword modifiers your audience is likely to use. A keyword modifier are words like

• cheap
• discount
• luxury
• best
• top
• offers
• vouchers

So if your main keywords are related to garden furniture then your keyword modifiers will look like this

{discount} + garden furniture
{luxury} + garden furniture
garden furniture + {offers}
garden furniture + {vouchers}

Every industry has different types of modifiers that people tend to use. Also, it’s worth bearing in mind that the type of modifier you use will attract different types of customers. Anybody putting “discount” or “offers” is likely to be looking for a website where competitive pricing is of paramount importance, whereas, a person searching using a modifier like “luxury” is likely to be looking for products or services that they perceive to be high-quality and aren’t as likely to be scared off by higher pricing.

This is where your knowledge of your market is important. Only you can know which type of customers you are targeting.

How to Find Keyword Modifiers

So just how can you find out which modifiers your customers are likely to use?

You can start by adding in the wildcard symbol before and after your keyword.

Go to Google and type your keyword (in this case, we’ll use the example of “Garden Furniture”).

* garden furniture
garden furniture *

Using the wildcard will give you an indication of the types of modifiers that your competitors are targeting.

From looking at just the first few pages of Google, we now have a couple more modifiers that we can use. The new modifiers are highlighted below:

• buy
• luxury
• sale
• special offers

You can also use a tool like Google Insights for further research.

Here are a couple more modifiers taken from the Google Insights tool

• garden furniture uk
• cheap garden furniture

Another useful tool is Social Mention. Social Mention will allow you to better understand what keyword modifiers people use on blogs and Social Media sites like Twitter.

Download the CSV file called “keywords” on the right-hand side of the page.

Here are few more modifiers we can use with the keyword “garden furniture”

• services
• luxury
• lawn
• offers
• displays
• tips
• guide

Additional Keyword Research: Community Research

Although keyword tools can certainly help you to make a decision on which keywords to target you’ll still need to do some research of your own if you want to gain a competitive advantage. Round here we’re fond of the saying “a fool with a tool is still a fool”. If you want to outsmart your competition then you need to think beyond the tools available and start to really drill down into researching places where your audience already hang out.

Use forum search tools such as the two listed below to find forum threads where people talk about the the topic of your website.

http://omgili.com/
http://boardreader.com

You’ll gain a much better appreciation of your market if you are really trying to connect with your target audience. Understand which sites they visit, which words they use. If you understand their current frustrations then this can be a great source of inspiration to you. If you know what makes your audience frustrated then you can look at this an opportunity to provide something new that they will like (whether that is through content or a product) and hopefully convert them to using your site or product more regularly.

Often keyword tools will only give you a basic overview of your market. It could be that there are other opportunities that you are missing out on by not going deeper into the keyword research phase.

You also need to remember your more savvy competition will already be using these tools and will probably try to target precisely the same keywords you want to target. This is where you need to outsmart your competition. Using Google Adwords Tool can be particularly frustrating. A keyword with reported volumes of less than 10 searches a month can still bring in visitors in the thousands each month. Don’t get fooled into using only one tool or method of keyword research or you’ll never realise your site’s potential to make money.

PPC

Where possible it’s always a good idea to use PPC to inform your keyword choices. If you use Google Adwords or MSN Adcenter, then you can quickly see which keywords are worth focusing your time upon. Set-up goals on your Analytics package so you know which keywords are converting.

Ideally, you want to run the PPC for as long as you can to ascertain the best performing keywords. Export the data and then use this as the basis for your SEO campaign. You can then target the keywords that you know will actually convert into sales.

PPC deserves an article of it’s own. We’ll be writing a detailed PPC guide in the near future, but it is certainly worth investing some time and money in to during the initial phase of any campaign.

Analytics

If you have a website already then you need to be able to track what is happening when visitors do reach your website. There are a number of different web analytics packages available, but for most websites, Google Analytics will do an adequate job of tracking how visitors interact with your site. Google Analytics also has the additional bonus of being totally free.

If you have a website and aren’t using any web analytics software then you really are shooting yourself in the foot. You really need to understand the behaviour of visitors who come to your site.

Web Analytics software will usually tell you which keywords brought visitors to your site. From here you can begin to better understand the strengths of your existing content. The keyword section in Google Analytics will show you which keywords are working for your site. You’ll be able to view how long visitors stay on the page, how many pages they view and which pages are most popular on your site.

Once you’re armed with this information it is far easier to begin to make more informed business decisions. If you run an ecommerce store then you’ll ideally also have set-up Ecommerce tracking in Google Analytics. This will tell you the conversion rates on each keyword. At the absolute minimum you need to set-up “goals” in Google Analytics. You can set-up goals for newsletter subscription sign-ups and web forms.

Look at the keywords that are already bringing visitors to your site and see if there is potential to build out another keyword list that you might have missed out on previously.

Webmaster Tools

Another useful tool for website owners is Google Webmaster Tools. Google Webmaster Tools will help you identify any basic technical errors with your site. The tool also provides a very useful breakdown of keywords that your site is ranking for on Google. From here you can see the average position of each keyword, how many impressions each keyword has each month (approximate search volume), the approximate number of clicks you receive each month along the click-through rate.

Google Webmaster Tools is useful as it will inform you about keyword opportunities. If you are ranking on page 2 for a particular keyword then you can use SEO to promote that keyword until you reach the first page where you’ll have a better understanding on the potential search volume of the keyword. The keyword list might also show that you are ranking for unexpected keywords. Export the keyword list to a CSV file and see if it is worthwhile including any of the keywords into your SEO campaign.

Conclusion

Once you have developed your keyword list then you’ll have most of the information you need for the foundation of your internet marketing campaign. Whether you decide to concentrate on SEO or PPC, knowing which keywords convert will be vital to your business and website.

In forthcoming articles we will show you how you can use keywords in your SEO and PPC campaigns. If you have any questions then don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Exposure: If there are any [...]]]> It is no secret that social media is a great communications tool. Public relations companies are now relying on social media as one of the major methods of creating an image and reaching as many individuals as possible. The five main powers of social media are as follows:

Exposure: If there are any sort of public events held today, photos and video will inevitably lead to postings on social media sites. One person sees a picture, then sends it to another or adds it to their wall, thus continuing the cycle of communication. Social media sites ensure that we are exposed to more information than we ever have been before, not to mention at a much faster pace than before social media was universal.

Expansion: With the incorporation of friends who link together with one another, we become connected with hundreds, or even thousands, more people than we ever could have before. This means if we are trying to get attention for a charity concert, we simply have to tell our friends, who tell their friends, and so on. Never before has it been easier to reach so many people with just a single message.

Virtuality: Of great importance to those who seek to send a message to the masses, social media ensures that there is no end to the message. If you produce a commercial, and it runs for two weeks, after those two weeks the message is terminated and never communicated again. With social media, messages are continuously filtered and passed on and on to more and more people.

Findability: Social media also serves as a great way to find those who we have lost contact with, or are attempting to reach. With millions of Facebook fans, it becomes easy for us to find those who we are seeking to reunite with or communicate a certain message to.

Education: Arguably one of the larger benefits of social media is the unlimited access to information. Not only does social media serve as a means of communication, but it is a way for us to become educated and learn about others, including the causes they stand behind and much more. All with the click of the mouse, we can become a little wiser than we were before.

Do you want riches beyond your wildest dreams? Of course you do. But don’t believe every promise and claim you read on the internet. You’ll read [...]]]> Each day many people will ask themselves “how can I make money at home?”. There are a number of ways that the average person can make money at home.

Do you want riches beyond your wildest dreams? Of course you do. But don’t believe every promise and claim you read on the internet. You’ll read articles that promise you riches beyond your wildest dreams without you having to lift a finger. If you believe that then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

In life, you only get out what you put in. If you aren’t prepared to do some work then you’ll never make money online. Just because you have to work doesn’t mean that you won’t have fun doing it. Don’t give up your day job just yet either. You need to prove to yourself that you can make a sustainable living online before you write your resignation letter and tell your boss what you really think of them!

The methods highlighted in this article will help you to make some extra cash at the very least, even if it won’t enable you to leave your job immediately.

Here at ShuntMoney.co.uk we’ve found 10 reliable ways you can make money online.

Ebay

Ebay.com is one of the quickest ways you can make money on the internet. Get rid of those unwanted Christmas presents or anything you no longer use. If you really want to receive the most money for your listing then consider investing in a good camera. You want to make sure that your listing looks good; the more enticing your listing looks, the more money you are likely to get.

Remember, on Ebay the potential buyer is actively searching out for your product so make sure that your description can help close the sale. You don’t have to be the world’s greatest copywriter, but if you can write a compelling product description then you’re far more likely to close the sale. Take some time to learn some basic copywriting techniques; it is a skill that will serve you well in more than one discipline. Understand what objections the buyer might have and write copy that persuades them to buy your listing. Just make sure not to write any misleading descriptions or you’ll receive negative feedback.

On Ebay, you’ll also want to offer great customer support. Email payment details and any refund conditions to interested buyers. This will help you improve your feedback score and make it easier for you to sell more items.
You’ll also want to try and time the end of your auction at peak times. If your auction ends at 11 on a Monday morning then you probably won’t get the same price as if the auction ended in the evening.

Dropshipping

What is dropshipping you ask? Dropshipping enables you to sell real products without the need for a warehouse or distribution system. The good news is that you don’t need to start hiring van drivers or your own warehouse. You’ll get a percentage of each product that you sell. You can combine dropshipping with Ebay and sell to interested parties on Ebay, but starting your own ecommerce site is another possibility. This gives you more control than Ebay, however, you won’t have the built in market base that comes with Ebay.

Before you begin, you need to decide on which products to promote. While DVDs and electronics products are popular with dropshippers, they are also very competitive markets that will probably need a lot of initial investment. Instead, take your time to really research different niches. There are a lot of potentially lucrative niches that aren’t particularly competitive.

Take the time to source the right suppliers. Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and try to negotiate a better deal for yourself. You’ll be surprised at how much you can accomplish with a friendly phone call.

You also need to perform due diligence on any company you are thinking of going into business with. The internet is littered with tales of woe from people burned by dropshipping companies who promised the Earth, but failed to deliver. Research each company online and find out if these companies are legitimate or if other people have had problems with them in the past. If you see complaints from people online then try to contact those people to see what their issues were. Also, make sure the company is registered with Companies House and is actually a real business who fall under UK law. Try to avoid dealing with foreign dropshippers unless you are certain that you won’t fall victim to any scams.

Ecommerce

Setting up your own ecommerce store is also another very good way to make money online. Contrary to the common perception, you don’t have to spend very much money on your online store. There are a number of different options if you don’t want to pay for an ecommerce platform. Magento, OS Commerce and OpenCart are all open source options that don’t cost anything to buy.

You can either choose to sell digital products or physical products. If you choose digital products then this will be much easier to source and package. If you want to sell physical products then you’ll need to find a reliable supplier. You’ll also need somewhere to store your stock and a way to deliver any products.

Before you embark on setting up an ecommerce site, try to learn the basics of search engine optimisation, PPC, web analytics and product searches.

Each of these skills will give you the skills to promote any website. Search engine optimisation (SEO) will mean that your site appears higher in Google and other major search engines for keywords related to your products. SEO can take time to take effect, so while you are waiting for your site to raise in the rankings you might want to try PPC.

You’ll need to pay for pay per click (PPC) advertising during the initial launch of your site. PPC are the ads which appear on search engines whenever a user types in a particular keyword. You can use the data from PPC to better inform your decisions about which keywords to target while your perform SEO on your site. The most well-known PPC program is Google Adwords, although Microsoft do also have their own PPC ad platform on Bing called MSNAdcenter.

Learning the basics of web analytics programs will help you determine which products are performing well and where your site has room for improvement. One of the most well-known packages is Google Analytics. It’s free, so there’s really reason why you shouldn’t have at least one analytics package on your site.

Don’t forget that people also use shopping specific search engines now to find the products they want. That means that you’ll want to be listed in Google Merchant Center (Google Shopping). The Google Shopping search engine is different from the main Google search. Read up on the various requirements to being accepted in the Google Shopping search engine.

Affiliate Marketing

If you don’t have your own products or find the idea of dropshipping too stressful then you might want to take a look at affiliate marketing. With affiliate marketing you promote a product to interested parties and if they purchase after having clicked on your link then you will receive a portion of the sale.

One of the most popular sites with affiliates is ClickBank.com. ClickBank has lots of different software and information products to promote. Clickbank is popular with affiliates because of their generous affiliate payouts. Generally most affiliates will receive at least 50% of any sale so Clickbank can quickly generate a profit provided that you find the right product.

Amazon is another site with an affiliate program. You can promote every product on the Amazon website and make money whenever somebody buys from the store after clicking on your link. Although Amazon generally have less generous rates of commission than other websites, the fact that Amazon is so ubiquitous means that you can still make a good amount of money each month.

Again, you really need to research your market and see a particular product is really worth promoting. You can use keyword research tools to identify keywords with high search volumes.

If you are planning on using affiliate marketing to make money online then you’ll need to know how to market the product online. Read general marketing books before you begin and be prepared to spend some money on PPC and SEO in order to attract qualified visitors to your site.

Adsense

The popularity of Adsense has waned somewhat over the last few years, however, it is still a very popular program. It is the very definition of passive income. You’ll receive money every time a visitor to your website clicks on an ad.

Each ad is priced differently, so clicks on a credit card advert are more valuable than ad clicks for CD sales.

You will also need to optimise where you place the ads on your site in order to make the most amount of money. Adsense already has some useful documentation on how to maximise ad click throughs.

It’s difficult to make lots of money with Adsense, although, with the right websites it is certainly possible to pay your rent or mortgage each month with these sites. Again, you will want to learn SEO if you want to increase visitors and clicks on your site.

It’s not very cost effective to use PPC to drive visitors to an Adsense based website, this is why you’ll need to learn how to effectively market your website using so-called “free traffic” sources, such as, social news sites like StumbleUpon, Digg and Reddit and SEO.

Advertising

Advertising is also a very popular method of making money online. One of the most popular forms of advertising is CPM advertising. CPM is the cost of an ad per 1000 impressions. Depending on the type of site you own you’ll be able to charge different rates for CPM advertising. If you own a website in the financial services industry then it’s more likely that you’ll receive a higher CPM advertising rate than if your site is about paper clips.

There are a number of reputable CPM advertising networks available to website owners.

Some of the larger advertising networks include:

• Tribal Fusion
• Value Click
• Vibrant Media
• SixApart
• Precision Click
• Casale Media
• Adify

Freelancing

Freelancing online is also another great way to make money. Provided you have some skills there are no shortage of businesses looking for talented and experienced individuals. If you can write then there are a number of website owners looking for content to put on their website. Simiarly, if you know a programming language or are able to perform SEO to a good standard then there will be lots of businesses willing to hire you.

The following sites are among the biggest for freelancing jobs.
http://www.elance.com/
http://www.guru.com/

With any freelancing website you will have to perform the work to a high-standard. Freelancers are rated by the business owners who employ them so if you fail to meet deadlines or the work isn’t to a good standard then you could find it more difficult to get gigs in the future.

If you are in the UK, you might also want to regularly check some classified ads boards like GumTree or Craig’s List. Business owners often post to these services.

Selling Domains

Buying and selling domains can be a lucrative business if you know where to look to buy and sell domains. Buying and selling domains can be a complicated business. Sign-up to our free newsletter to learn more about the places where you can buy cheap domains with authority and where you can sell the same domain names for a profit.

Surveys

Surveys are a great way to make money if you don’t have much experience online. However, despite that, you won’t make that much money taking part in these surveys. Don’t be fooled by the online marketing that exists out there that says you can make thousands of pounds in your spare-time by registering for hundreds of surveys.

One of the more reliable surveys you can part in is for YouGov. They pay different rate for survey completions and is a reliable way to make a small amount of money each month.

http://my.yougov.com/register.aspx