In the last couple days I’ve received a couple emails from readers who are eager to start making money online. They want to know if they should monetize with adsense, or with affiliate products. They want to know what kind of products they should choose. They just don’t understand how to find them and how to make them sell.
Good questions..
I asked to see their sites and told them I would take a quick look and see if I could help them out.
Site 1: 2 posts. 1 is a poem.
Site 2: Doesn’t exist yet.
Here’s the deal.
You can’t make money online without first creating a foundation for your business. You just can’t. It doesn’t work. You would never consider building a sky scraper without a solid foundation on which to stand. You wouldn’t try to open a store in the real world without the basics covered. You can NOT create a profitable and sustainable business online without a solid foundation.
What is a foundation?
A foundation includes knowing what you want to write about.
A foundation includes knowing who you’re trying to talk to.
A foundation includes having some awesome content on your site for people to read.
A foundation includes having people who actually read your stuff. (TRAFFIC)
A foundation includes creating connections with other people who talk about the same (or related) thing as you.
You can not make money without a foundation. period.
If you do not have traffic, who do you think will click your ads or buy your products?
If you do not have any content written what will people read when they get to your site? What will make them subscribe to your feed, or come back to your site again?
If you don’t have a site where are people going to go to “buy” your products?
Long gone are the days where you could just write an article, post it to EZA, redirect your link to an affiliate product and make money.
Those days are gone.
Now you’re going to have to put some work, some time, some love, some blood sweat and tears into it. You’re going to have to build your foundation before you start adding the first 10 stories to your business.
How do you start to build your foundation?
Take some time to think about your topic ~ can you come up with a list of 100 relevant things to write about it?
Take some time to think about your readers. Who are they? What do they do? What do they need? Write it down.
Take some time and decide where you want to put your content. Are you going to host your own blog (YES)? Use a free blogging platform? Start at Squidoo or hubpages? You need to know this answer BEFORE you start thinking about how it’s going to make money ~ because this decision will affect your options when it comes to monetization.
Take some time and write write write some awesome content. Not just mediocre content. You want to write fantastic content that makes people want to come back and hear what you have to say next.
Take some time to start meeting other bloggers who blog about similar topics. Find them on twitter. Follow their blogs. Comment on their posts when you’re inspired to do so. Talk to them on Facebook. Hell, send them an email and say hi.
Take some time to join a forum. Find a forum that talks about your topic. Get to know your potential readers ~ what they need, what they want, questions they have. Start writing posts that answer those questions and give them what they want. Participate in the forum ~ answer questions there. Become the “go to” person in your topic.
Then… when you have great content, some traffic, you’re making some friends ~ then ~ start thinking about products or services you could offer that will fill the needs/wants/questions of your readers. You can start adding links to those things in your posts, or in the sidebar… there are many ways to start monetizing. However, no matter what you choose it will not work without the foundation in place FIRST.
This can be tough for people, I know. I need money. I want money. Gotta make the money. But understand, it’s just not going to work, if you don’t start off on the right foot from the beginning.
I’m working on a program to help people create their foundations… I’d love to know what questions you have, or struggles you’ve encountered when it comes to creating the foundation for your online enterprise. Please feel free to ask in the comments and I’ll do my best to help you out. 🙂
GREAT post!! And as you stated on Facebook, yes, sometimes you DO have to deviate from your regularly scheduled programming!
I am a firm believer in having to strengthen your foundation before you can start building your walls. After all, if you don’t work on your foundation how will you know you’ve accomplished what you want when you don’t know what you are standing for??
Thanks for deviating!! I love it!
Myra
Thanks Myra! And you know once I got finished with this I was more motivated to write what was scheduled on the other site too. Funny how that works. It is surprising to me how many people try to skip the foundation. It’s really a mandatory part of a successful business. Thanks for the tweet too. Appreciate it. 🙂
Hi, I am stopping by from SITS linky love. I totally loved this post. When I first started blogging I had no idea that people could even make money from it. But nearly 8 years later, I am ready to maybe start getting a bit of money for what I love.
You’re so right a foundation is KEY.
I really don’t think you can get into blogging to make money. I agree you can work at it and build up to it, but it definitely takes a bunch of work to get there. You have to love what you do to make the foundation sound, in my opinion.
I think like any business endeavor you can go into to make money… but with blogging having a foundation of passion for the topic and love of what you’re doing is hugely important for long term success. Thanks for stopping by Lauren.
Great post, and Advice! It does take work. A couple of years ago I never would have thought to turn to blogging to make money. And now so many people are doing it that everyone thinks “I can do that!” But really, there has to be more to a blog than just throwing up some random stuff. Those who are successful have put in LOTS of work, and have a solid base.
I am on my journey to try and earn some income from my blog, but I am also only blogging about the things I love! I know it is not something that happens overnight, and I’m working on it everyday.
Stopping by from SITS!
Ashley
My question is what do you do once you built a pretty good foundation but still do not know where to go from there. It is tough to blog great quality content for year or two and not see a peny from it. Burn out is rampant.
Great question… I’m not suggesting foundation building needs to take that long. 🙂 But it’s key to making the rest work. When you’ve got your foundation built you’ve got to start tapping into your audience. Look for the questions they have, the needs they have and then provide them with solutions and answers ~ some of those being things they pay for. You can use other people’s products or create your own. Feature products from Amazon ~ there’s tons and tons of ways to help your audience than can bring in some money as well.
Hi Jackie
Great advice as always. To often people are saying “how do i make money today, im broke and need cash” you correctthe web, blogging or nich sites all need a foundation to build from. With niceh sites ofcourse that would be a Keyword/need with a blog a niche or at elast a solid idea of where its going.
After all foundations are not built for the first 3 storeys of a skyscrpaper but for the next 50 or so.
Thanks for continuing your insightfull posts. whilst not a work at home mom i find your insights very relevant.
regards