I’m often asked by people who are new to Internet Marketing or online business WHAT products to sell online? Many think that they need to have a product to sell.

Of course, if you have your own products or services, the question you ask is different. Perhaps you’ll ask how to set up a business website or how to sell my products/services online?

However, if you don’t have your own products/services, you can also jump on board. In fact, most people who first started out in online business did NOT have their own products or services. They promote and sell other people products/services. This is known as Affiliate Marketing.

It’s a very simple yet powerful online business model. You sign up as an affiliate to a product producer and get a unique affiliate ID or unique affiliate URL. What you do next is to send people to the producer’s website using your unique affiliate URL. When people buy the product or services, you get a commission.

If you promote and sell information products, the commissions you get is usually in the range of 50% to 75%. Another benefit of being an affiliate marketer is that you don’t need to worry about customer support or complaints. All these will be handled by the owner or producer of the products or services. Your job as an affiliate is to find potential buyers, pre-sell them and then deliver them to the producer’s website.

Simple isn’t it? But is affiliate marketing easy?

Certainly NOT!  If you spend a little time surfing the Net, I’m sure you’ll find many info about how many people become very RICH OVERNIGHT in affiliate marketing. Please DO NOT believe those claims or info. It’s just HYPE!

Affiliate marketing is NOT as easy as many Internet gurus want you to believe. Those who try to convince you otherwise are usually trying to SELL you something!  Affiliate marketing is NOT a “get-rich-quick” scheme. There are many nuances and subtleties to learn and master that I don’t think can be learned overnight.

In order to succeed in affiliate marketing, you must have a concrete ACTION PLAN and a TO-DO-LIST. Then, you must follow the plan every single day. You must be self-motivated and have a strong determination for success!

Learn more about Creating ACTION PLAN And Make Money Online Without Having Your Own Products or Services.

P.S. Download a FREE how to make money using Squidoo step-by-step guide!

In the previous post – How To Set Reachable Goals And Start Earning Money, I outlined six simple steps you can follow to set reachable goals and start making money online. In this article, I will explain each step in greater depth. These are the steps I use to earn money online using free methods. No need to spend any money on PPC. No need to buy domain and hosting services.

So let’s get started right away….

1. Find a topic or niche

To do this, I will visit EzineArticles.com (the most popular article directory on the Net). Select a category that you’re interested in. If you already have a topic in mind, just type in a phrase on the search field and see what articles are being written on that topic.

For example, I type in the phrase “eczema treatment” and see a bunch of articles on this subject. Go ahead and read a few articles just to get a feel on what people are writing about.

2. Check if there is money to be made

In this step, you want to find out if there are products that people are buying. A very quick way to verify this is to go to eBay.com and just type in a keyword (in this case the keyword is “eczema”). A search for this keyword produces 251 results (see screenshot below).

On top of that, you can also go to Clickbank Analytics to check if any info-product available on this subject. For example, searching the word “eczema” gives you a bunch of info-products that you can promote.

3. Build an information site

First, you need to do 4 things:

- Go to gmail.com and create a new gmail account (free)

- Go to blogspot.com and create a new account (free)

- Go to google.com/analytics and create a new account (free)

- Add your new blog in Google Analytics and paste the tracking code into your blog.

Now come the hard part…. selecting the right keywords and writing the articles. We want to select 5 long-tail keywords and write 5 articles based on these keywords. Note: long-tail keywords are keyword phrases that are easy to rank on the search engines. These keywords are very specific and have low search volume.

For example, the phrases “treatment of eczema during pregnancy” and “baby eczema breastfeeding” are examples of long-tail keywords. As of this writing, if you type these phrases in Google, you’ll only see 1 page for the first phrase and 76 pages for the second phrase respectively. If you write articles (300 words) targeting on these phrases, you can easily gain top spot in Google.

To find long-tail keywords, go to SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool and type the keyword eczema. Look through the keyword list and try to find at least 5 long-tail keywords. Do not worry about the daily search volume at this moment.
Write 5 articles and submit to your blog. At the end of each article, paste in your eBay RSS Feed. To learn how to do this, read this article: “How To Make Money Online With eBay RSS Feed And Blogger Blog“.

4. Promote your information site

Here’s how to promote your new blog (after you’ve written and submitted 5 articles of course) step by step.

- Submit your blog to feedage.com >> to do this, go to your blog and click on the “orange RSS icon” you see in your web address bar.

- Go to socialmarker.com and bookmark all the 5 pages or articles of your blog.

- Next, take one article and rewrite it by at least 50% and then submit the article to these 5 article direstories: EzineArticles.com, ArticlesBase.com, GoArticles.com, ArticleDashBoard.com and IdeaMarketers.com (NOTE: rewrite all 5 articles and submit each to these article directories). Do this at your own pace.

- Submit the rewritten articles (one by one) to Squidoo and HubPages. You don’t need to do all this in one day, you can do this in stages for 3-5 days.

NOTE: To write articles quickly, read this “8 Simple Steps To Write Great Article Quickly“.

5. Monitor the traffic to your blog and see what keywords people use to find your blog.

Now, log on to Google Analytics and look at your traffic statistics. Google Analytics can tell you the sources of your traffic as well as the keywords people use to find your blog (see screenshot below).

6. Rinse and Repeat.

After doing steps 1 to 4, what I normally do is let the blog runs for 30 days. At the same time, I will do my research and pick another new topic or niche and do steps 1 to 5 all over again. If I make consistent sales then I will consider to expand my free blog into a full blown site using WordPress blog with a domain name and hosting.

The important thing is to do all this consistently at your own pace. After some practice, perhaps you would be able to complete one topic or nche in 5 days. That’s it! Now you can follow this simple step and set some reachable goals.

P.S. If you need more information, I recommend you to read these two books: One Week Marketing Action Plan and Bloggers Paycheck.

You can read the full reviews here: One Week Marketing Review and Bloggers Paycheck Review.

When you read a “how to make money online” book, very often you’re told to set goals and have concrete action plan. Without any doubt, setting goals is very important for your success. But, when you’re just getting started, you don’t have a clue how to go about doing it.

Well, if that’s you, you’ve come to the right place. In part 1 of this article, I will share with you the concrete steps on how to set simple and reachable goals that you can follow. In part 2, I will explain each step in depth showing you exactly what you need to do.

If you follow and implement these steps consistently for the next 3 months, I’m very convinced that you’ll start seeing some money flowing into your bank account. The key to earning money online is being CONSISTENT! – focus on one topic at a time, work on it for a while, monitor the results and do some tweaking and then move on to another topic or niche.

So let’s get started….

Here are the steps for setting a reachable goal:

1. Find a topic or subject you’re interested in – in part 2, I will share with you the exact steps you can follow to find a topic.

2. Check and validate that there is “money” to be made in the topic you selected – in part 2, I will share with you how to find products that are already selling.

3. Build an information site – in part 2, I will show you how to do this at no cost (no need to buy a domain name or hosting service).

4. Promote your information site – in part 2, you’ll learn how to do this step-by-step.

5. Monitor and tweak – in part 2, I will show you how to monitor your site statistics (how many visitors and what keywords they use to find your site).

6. Rinse and Repeat – move on to the next topic or niche.

That’s it! Six simple steps you can take to set reachable goals and start earning some money online.

Stay tuned for the next post as I will go in more details each of the step outlined above.

Each day, there may be hundred or even thousands of people jumping into the bandwagon of Internet business or Internet marketing with the hope to earn money. But, needless to say that most of them FAIL miserably.

There can be thousands of reasons why people fail online but I won’t discuss them in this article. If you want to know, you can read this article “Why so many people fail in Internet Marketing?”

In this article, I will talk about the importance of market research and market intelligence for your online business. Having this knowledge is very crucial, it can even dictate whether you will be successful or not.

If you’ve been around in the Internet Marketing world for a while now, perhaps you’ve heard of people talk about how important market research is.

But, what exactly is market research and market intelligence? And why do we need them?

Well, in a nutshell, market research and market intelligence mean having the KNOWLEDGE about your market. What is this knowledge?

To know your market means to know the following information:

• What is your target market? What are you selling?
• What is the nature of your market? Is it an “evergreen” market or is it a fad market?
• Who are your target market? Who are buying? What are their needs? What are they looking for? Where do they hang out?
• Who are your competitors? How many competitors you have?

This knowledge is key to building a successful online business. Do not go and spend time designing and building your website before you uncover this information!

But, how do you uncover this information?

There are many places you can uncover this information (both online and offline).

There are many places you can go online to do market research but I won’t discuss all as I only visit two sites to do my research most of the times, my favorite two sites are: eBay Marketplace and SitePoint Marketplace. These two sites are more than enough to uncover what people are selling or buying, what products are selling well, what niches are popular, what is the generic keywords people use to find what they want, etc.

If I have the time, sometimes I also visit Yahoo Shopping and Amazon for more research.

I also do research by going to the local bookstore and browse the magazines to check which markets are written about. Popular subjects will get people talking. In a good market, you will find plenty of magazines covering a wide range of topics. The more the market being written, it also suggests passion. If many people care to write and read a particular subject, then you can be sure that there are needs in the market waiting to be filled.

The AUTOMATED TOOLS I use to CONFIRM that I’m in the RIGHT Market

1. Micro Niche Finder ~ An invaluable software tool that allows you to find micro niches and profitable keywords. You can read the full review at Micro Niche Finder Review.
2. PPC Bully ~ Another invaluable software tool I use to collect competitive information before I create my PPC campaigns. You can read the full review at PPC Bullly Review.

Hope you learn something from this article. Thanks for reading.

Whether it’s a website or blog, the two biggest problems most of us have to deal with are:

1. Creating quality content on a regular basis.

2. Getting quality incoming links on a regular basis.

If you’re currently running and maintaining at least one website or blog, I’m sure you agree. Because this is key to success for any website or blog.

First, let’s talk briefly what do quality content and quality incoming links mean?

Well, content is essentially the information and communication channel of your website or blog. What information are your website or blog offering? What does it try to communicate to its readers?

Needless to say that a website or blog must be able to provide RELEVANT and RECENT information to its visitors. For example, if your website or blog talks about Real Estate Investing, you will need to provide the most recent and relevant information on this topic on a regular topic. You can’t, for example, talk about dog training which has no relevancy.

So, quality content means ‘relevance’ and ‘recency’. Not only your visitors will appreciate quality content but also the major search engines like Google loves relevant and recent information. If you can provide quality content regularly, Goolge will give your site or blog good ranking and you’ll get quality and targeted traffic as a result.

Now, providing good content is not enough to win Goolge’s heart. You must also have quality incoming links from other sites to your site or blog. In Google’s eyes, an incoming link means you get a ‘vote’ or ‘endorsement’ from other site. This is one of the most important factors Google use to rank sites. Those sites that have many quality incoming links are considered as an ‘Authority’ site.

Therefore, these two factors or activities (creating quality content and getting quality incoming links) are key to success for any website or blog.

But, these are the two activities most people fret! In fact, these are the two biggest problems 99.9% of webmasters and bloggers have to deal with. Of course, you can outsource these activities but be prepared to pay, and it won’t be cheap.

Fortunately, there is SOLUTION for these problems.

To deal with content, I use Monthly Content. It’s a membership site that provides quality PLR content every month. PLR stands for Private Label Rights. Essentially, PLR content is content you can call your own and do with it as you like. The best part is that all the research and writing is done for you. If you have a blog, you can schedule the content to run on autopilot.

I have written a full review on Monthy Content, you can read it at: Monthly Content Review.

As for getting quality incoming links, I use these two automated link-building tools: 3 Way Links and Instant Directory Profits.

You can get more information about 3 Way Links and Instant Directory Profits by reading this article: “How to Rank Well in Search Engines and Get Tons of Traffic“.

Many gurus always tell us that we can make BIG money fast using PPC or Pay Per Click advertising. While it’s true that there are many successful Internet marketers who make good money from PPC but what many gurus don’t tell you is that there are even more people who lose money in this arena.

If you’re new in Internet Marketing, I don’t recommend you to jump into the PPC game right away. For the newbies, it’s better for you to start learning how to earn money from the Net using the FREE method first. Remember that there is simply no short cuts to Internet Marketing success.

There is a process you need to go through. Everyone (without an exception) must go through this process. Ask any successful Internet marketer and if he or she is honest, they will tell you that they did not achieve their success overnight. Most likely, these individuals have worked hard to achieve the success they enjoy today.

Of course, you can cut short this process IF AND ONLY IF you follow the correct GUIDE. If you follow the wrong guide, you’ll find yourself stuck in the never ending and frustrating process.

But the question is….

How do you find the correct guide or formula?

Well, some people find the formula through trial and error, others stumble upon the right guide and stick with it. For me personally, it’s a combination of both. I started with PPC, lost thousands of dollars…. I also buy one Internet Marketing product (software, ebooks, video tutorial) after another, I was always chasing for the next big thing!

Perhaps you have the same experience with me or perhaps you’re still looking for the right formula. Different people achieve their success in different ways. But the things or rather traits that all successful Internet marketers have are: DISCIPLINE, FOCUS AND PERSEVERANCE.

In the world of Internet Marketing, no matter how good or successful you are, you’ll always encounter challenges and frustrations at one time or another. Without the qualities or traits mentioned above, you’ll just give up and stop charging ahead.

If you’re a newbie or have been around for a while but still struggle to make your first sale reading this post, I would like to recommend you to check out these two products:

1. One Week Marketing Action Plan ~ you can read the review at: One Week Marketing Review.

2. PPC Bully ~ you can read the review at: PPC Bully Review.

These are the two products that I wish I had when I first got started.

The first product “One Week Marketing Action Plan” is a concrete “no hype and no fluff” action guide that lays out the EXACT daily task you can follow to become a successful Internet Marketer. It comes with a real case study where you can actually see the plan in action. All the money-making methods taught in this guide are FREE, you don’t need to invest money in order to execute the plan. Again, read the review for more details.

The second product “PPC Bully” is a tool to help you see beforehand which PPC campaigns are successful and which are not before you spend your hard earned money. It serves like a “spy” giving you all the market competitive information before you launch your campaign. Again, read the review for details.

These two products now serve as my road map to success!

Hope you find this post helpful. Please feel free to leave your comment here. Thanks for reading.

Two of the biggest reasons why so many people FAIL in online business or internet marketing is LACK of FOCUS and a concrete ACTION PLAN. You may argue that the reasons why many people fail is because they don’t take consistent action or they got confused and paralyzed due to information overload.

There can be many reasons why people fail online but during my journey in online business, I have seen over and over again that many people fail due to lack of focus and action plan.

From my experience, I have learnt that there are many ways we can earn money from the Net. But first you need to focus and get good at ONE thing one at a time.

Now, the next question is…

How do you focus and get good at something?

The answer is simple, you need to have an ACTION PLAN that shows you step-by-step what is the daily task you should take. Follow the plan for a period of time until it becomes your second nature. Once you are adept at it, you will do it everyday as if you’re brushing your teeth every morning.

However, be careful of WHAT PLAN you’re following!

If you follow the WRONG PLAN, you won’t achieve the results you want and you will be wasting your precious time. Therefore, you have to be careful what plan or advice you follow, especially when it comes to Internet Marketing. The IM world is full of hype and scams. You’ll need to break through the clouds.

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to find out which PLAN is GOOD and which one is BAD unless you’ve been around and actually doing the internet marketing business for a while now. If you’re already an experienced internet marketer, I think you know what I’m talking about. When you have the experience, you can actually smell SCAM by just reading the sales letter or emails itself.

Most sales letters created by Internet gurus tell you NOTHING but HYPE. They always like to boast something that “sounds too good to be true”. They always tell you that it’s so EASY that even a baby can do it. Sounds familiar?

Well, if you’re new in the IM world, just ask yourself this question….

“If it’s so easy, why isn’t everyone succeeding?”

I hope you find the information useful.

Now, if you’ve ever asked the question: “What is the online marketing action plan that works?”

The answer is….

One Week Marketing Action Plan by PotPieGirl.

I recommend this product because I have actually used the methods myself and they work. There is no hype, no fluff, no guarantee of riches. What you’ll learn in this guide are real methods that work! A real ACTION PLAN that outlines in simple-to-follow instructions the steps you should do daily in order to succeed online.

You can read the full review of this product at: One Week Marketing Review. You won’t find any hype in my review. I tell you EXACTLY what you will get when you order the product.

P.S. I’m so convinced that the One Week Marketing Action Guide works that I also throw in BONUSES worth thousands of dollars. Click here to take a look at my One Week Marketing Bonus.

In the previous post: “Why Almost 99% of Internet Businesses Fail“, we talked about the REASON why many hard-working and motivated online marketers failed to achieve any success is because they overlooked a BASIC RULE of MARKETING.

This post will talk about this rule, and how to apply it to increase your online sales conversion rates.

So what is the basic rule or principle of marketing that most internet marketers are overlooking or ignoring?

The answer is… they fail to find TARGET MARKETS that have CUSTOMERS who are willing to BUY!

Please understand that the key to success online is NOT about PERSUADING and CONVINCING people to buy your products or offers. But rather, it’s about FINDING TARGET MARKETS that already have people WANT to buy. What you need to do after finding these markets is to present your solutions or offers in front of the buyers.

But, how to you find markets that already have buyers?

Well, there are many ways to do this. Personally, I use a software tool called: “Micro Niche Finder”. It’s a very powerful and time-saving software that can help you uncover markets quickly. For more information, read this post: “Micro Niche Finder Review“.

Another of my favorite way of finding target markets that already have willing buyers is known as reverse-engineering. This method is very useful if you have no idea about what niche market to get into. Instead of starting from scratch at the very beginning of the niche finding process, you just need to spend an hour or two studying your competitors’ ads and offers. This very simple yet powerful technique is described in details in “Adwords Checkmate Matrix“.

It’s very important that you first find a target market that has potential buyers before you spend time, money and effort creating your Internet business. If you do that, increasing your sales conversion rates is a matter of implementing some sales techniques or tricks that work. On the other hand, if you’re in the market that has no potential buyers, success will always elude you, even if you’re the greatest marketer or salesman in the world.

After you’ve identified your target market, the next step is to perform keyword research and analysis. This is the process of identifying keywords or keyword phrases that are used by your buyers when searching for products/solution.

For me personally, I use 2 software tools: “Micro Niche Finder” and “WebComp Analyst” to identify low-competition keywords and perform backlink analysis.

TIPS: Remember that NOT all keywords are created equal. Some keywords have HIGH commercial value, some have LOW. This means there are keywords that people who are ready and willing to buy will search for, and there are keywords that people using just for browsing purposes. Obviously, you want to target keywords that have high commercial value.

For example, the keyword/phrases “iphone 3g” and “where to buy cheap iphone 3g” have different commercial value. The first one is very general, will get you lots of clicks, but very little or no sales. The second one is more specific, will get relatively few clicks, but have higher sales conversion rate.

Therefore, in order to increase your online sales conversion rates, you want to target keywords that are more specific. Because these are the “buyers keywords” as opposed to “browsers keywords”. Read this related post: “More Traffic Does Not Mean More Money?” for more info.

Hope you find the information in this post helpful.

Believe it or not… With all the BIG success stories you’ve been told how people make BIG money online, almost 99% of internet businesses FAIL!

There are many reasons why so many fail… such as lack of focus, lack of discipline, lack of passion, lazy, etc. But, even if you have all these, when it comes to internet business, many will still fail miserably.

Many people have all the marketing and technical skills for success but still fail miserably when it comes to internet business. As you can see, the Internet is actually a huge graveyard of many failed online projects.

We have seen many motivated people, who worked very hard and pour in hours, days, weeks, months even YEARS into their web businesses yet getting no reward.

If you’ve been doing internet marketing for a while now, I think you know the frustration of spending hundreds, and often thousands of dollars on the latest courses like SEO, PPC, link building, article marketing, copywriting, blogging, etc. but fail to achieve any significant result.

The statistics isn’t pretty… only 1 or 2 in every 100 people that do web business actually succeed and continue to earn very good money from the Net. Therefore, the odds of success in internet business is stacked against you.

But why so many hard-working and motivated individuals failed?

The reason is actually very simple. They overlooked the BASIC rule or principle of MARKETING!

This basic rule of marketing is very critical to a web business success.

I will share with you this basic rule in the next post. So please stay tuned!

Your Internet Marketing business should have goals, without goal it’s like a ship sailing on a sea without a destination. Write out your goals and include pertinent details for each one.

Here are some tips to help you write out your internet marketing business goals:

State goals that reflect the lifestyle you want to live. For example: “I want to build a successful home-based internet marketing businesses that can give me financial and time freedom so that I can spend more time with my loved ones at home”. Or “I want to build a niche site that can make me an extra income of $1000 per month”.

When writing your goals, make sure that they are realistic, specific and attainable. You want to do things in your internet marketing business that you can complete. Don’t write things like I want to make $100,000 in 30 days. Internet marketing business is not a get-rich-quick scheme, like anything that’s worth doing, time and efforts are required on your part.

Provide as much detail as possible for each of your goals. The more details you provide, the easier it will be to work on those goals. Write down the steps you will use to accomplish each goal.

For example, the following are the steps I use to create a niche site:

1. Research and choose a niche topic
2. Do some basic keyword research
3. Choose 15 long-tail keywords
4. Write articles (300 – 400 words) for each long-tail keywords
5. Register a domain name for your niche site
6. Point domain to your hosting server
7. Design and build your niche site using the 15 articles (one article targets one keyword)
8. Submit articles to article directories
9. Bookmark each page using socialmarker.com

For detailed explanations of the above steps, read this article: “Powerful Internet Niche Marketing Software That Finds Untapped Micro Niche In A Flash“.

Assign a timeframe or completion date for each goal. Don’t give a lot of time to one goal and not enough time to another.

If you have several goals, prioritize each goal according to its importance. Decide which goal is the most important or urgent one. That one should come first, then the next important and so on.

Last but not least, it’s important that you write down your goals so that you can look at them when you need to. This way, they are always kept fresh in your mind. Go over your goals often so that you will remember what you’re trying to accomplish.

Remember that building a successful internet marketing business is not an overnight affair. You need focus and consistent efforts to achieve success.

If you want to learn how to build long-term and successful internet marketing business, I strongly suggest you to check out this program: Maverick Money Makers.