There is so much talk these days about how to make money online. There's plenty of information about setting up a website, promoting products, setting up an email list and so on and so forth.
But what should you make a website about? How DO you make money? And, most importantly, can you do it all for free?
Well let's take each question in turn.
What should you make your website about?
This is the most important question of all because what you make your website about and how much money you can make from it all depends on what it's about.
So how do you decide?
Before you consider anything else about your website, first decide what you would enjoy making it about. Just think about what you love to do (a hobby?) or a subject you're interested in. In has to be something that you're quite passionate about because your website is going to be based on it. So if you don't love what you do, you won't be good at it.
If you have a hobby that you really enjoy and can talk about for hours, then the decision is easy. Your hobby will be your website subject (niche).
If you don't have a hobby that you can talk about for hours, then think of a subject that interests you. You don't even have to know a lot about it because thanks to Google, you can find any information you need.
For example, you might enjoy researching and learning about World War II, or you might have an interest in classic cars, or have a child with an illness, or you're a parent of young children, or you love pets, or movies, or gardening, or photography, or reading or.....the list goes on.
Whatever it is you enjoy reading, watching, learning or doing, you can build an online business around it.
How do you make money?
That is the million dollar question that everyone wants to know. How to you turn any website into a profitable online business?
Well making money online is easy. The only question is how much? And that depends entirely on you and what your website is about, how much work you do on your website and how useful and informative your website is.
People come to the internet looking for information. If they find what they're looking for at your website, then they'll stay awhile. If not they'll click away to someone else's website.
When visitors stay on your website, there are several ways you can make money.
The quickest and easiest way to make money online is with Google AdSense. These are the small ads you see on millions of sites all over the internet. These ads are easy to use. You just set up a free AdSense account, choose how you want your ads to look and the size you need and then you just copy and paste the code provided into your web page and the ads will display automatically and will match the content of your web page.
These ads are known as Pay Per Click ads because every time someone clicks on one of your ads, you earn a small commission. It really is that easy.
Another way to earn money online is by selling other people's products for a commission. This is known as affiliate marketing.
The quickest way to get started with this is to go to an affiliate network such as ClickBank or Commission Junction and sign up for a free account. Then you can start browsing their huge list of products and advertizers and start displaying their ads on your site. Then is someone clicks through and makes a purchase, you earn an affiliate commission.
A third way to earn money from your website is to sell your own products. This can be just about anything, as long as it fits in with your website's niche. You can set up payment links with PayPal to accept credit cards or you can sell products through eBay or you can create eBooks and sell them through digital retailers such as ClickBank or Amazon's Kindle publishing.
Can you do this all for free?
This can all be done for free. Affiliate accounts are free to open, PayPal payments are free to set up.
You can also set up your website for free (and do it very easily) if you start with a free blogging service such as Google's own Blogger.com.
With blogger you can set up a site for free, install AdSense ads easily (they provide a separate tab for this) and start adding content to your site immediately.
So if you want to get online right now with your own profitable website, decide what you want your site to be about (your niche), set up a free Blogger account, install some AdSense ads and then look for affiliate networks to join.
Remember: Begin with a great website. The quality of the information you put on your site will determine the success of your online business. So make building a great website your first priority.
Just start small and grow your online business until you're earning enough money so that you can quit your job.
