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. 🙂
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