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Simply put, to make money on the Internet you need
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Product |
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There are two
choices when selecting a product to sell; sell your own product or
sell someone else’s product. If you sell your own tangible product,
you will need to arrange for shipping and handling of the
merchandise. Non-tangible product, such as software and ebooks, are
somewhat more convenient, because the customer can simply download
the product via the Internet. |
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You can also
generate revenue by selling other’s products. The most predominate
example of this is through affiliate programs (sometimes called
associate programs). Simply sign up for an affiliate program and
place a link on your website to the affiliate merchant's website. When visitors to
your web site use the link to make a purchase, the merchant will
process the transaction and pay you a commission. There are
literally thousands of affiliate programs you can join.
http://www.incomemax.com/ has a
listing of many excellent affiliate programs. Even the largest and
best-known Internet marketing companies, such as
www.amazon.com and
www.ebay.com have affiliate programs you can join for free!
Most affiliate programs provide a system that allows you to
track sales made through your link. |
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The Website |
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Web sites are
composed of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) pages, which are
usually created with user-friendly software, such as
Microsoft’s Frontpage or Macromedia’s Dreamweaver. You can
attempt to build a website from scratch, or you can purchase
templates from a site like
www.frontpagetools.com. Another option is to have someone
build you a custom website, but this can cost thousands.
StreamsOfMoney offers another approach. We build and publish a
website for you that is based from one of our Turnkey packages.
Once the website is built, it is “published” on the internet. Most commonly, this is
done through a company that specializes in web site hosting, such as
www.hosting.com. This
normally costs about $20/month. A URL (Universal Resource Locator) name
(ie www.idealincom.org) is
registered through a domain name registrar and “pointed” to the
website.
StreamsOfMoney offers hosting and domain name registration services
for our customers. Hosting with StreamsOfMoney costs $19 to
set up and $14.99/mo. Domain name registration costs $15 for a
year. Now,
the site is ready for visitors! |
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Website Visitors |
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There are many ways
to attract visitors to your website. The URL name itself is often
used to attract visitors. For example,
www.dogs.com will direct one to
www.petsmart.com, a large pet supply retailer. The downside is
that most concise and descriptive URLs are already taken. They can
be purchased, but are expensive. |
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Search engines,
like
www.yahoo.com and
www.google.com are an excellent way to generate traffic.
Generally, the higher a site appears in a search, the more likely it
is to generate “hits”. There are two ways to advance up the list of
sites. You can work your way to the top through website content and
by having other sites on the Internet link to yours. Or, you can
buy your way to the top with “pay-per-click”. Through
pay-per-click, one can bid for position 1, 2, 3, etc. for specific
keyword phrases and almost instantly the website will appear in that
position for the keyword phrase. Pay-per-click listings appear in
Yahoo and Google as “sponsor links”. The cost to be in
position #1 can be as low as $.05 per click.
There is no need to worry about ending up with an unexpected large
pay-per-click bill. The pay-per-click programs are set-up so
that you can predetermine the amount of money you will spend
marketing your site. |
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Some other forms of
advertising include magazine and ezine ads, classified ads, and link
exchanges. When selecting a method to promote your site,
consideration should be given to who will see the ad. Ads seen
by individuals that are interested in your product are much more
likely to generate sales than ads that are simply shown to a random
audience. This is why pay-per-click is so effective. You
will know the exact keyword phrase the searcher must enter for your
site to appear.. |
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Accepting Payment |
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If all the
products on your website are sold through affiliate programs, the merchants will process
the credit cards from their website. So, you will not need to
establish a method of accepting payment.
If you are selling your own product,
don’t worry; accepting credit cards is much easier than you might
think. All you need to do is set up an account with a company that
specializes in accepting online payment. The most popular is
www.paypal.com.
Another excellent choice is
www.clickbank.com, especially when selling
downloadable product. We have also had good luck with
www.2checkout.com.
They even provide a free shopping cart!
Setting up an account will generally cost around $50.00 and a small
fee is taken out per transaction. |
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More Information |
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Want to learn more
about Internet marketing? One of the best and most fun ways to
learn is to just jump right in. Check out our
Turnkey
Packages! StreamsOfMoney can have you up and running in a week
or less. If
your not quite ready to jump in, but are interested in studying
Internet marketing further, we recommend Cory Rudl's
Internet Marketing Course. It has over 1,000 pages and 2
CD ROMS of cutting edge tips and strategies.
Rick Adam's
Costly Online Blunders
is excellent reading for anyone starting in Internet business.
This ebook is full of priceless tips from top Internet Marketers who
confess their "costly blunders". |
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