Step By Step Money Online

One of the best ways to get the word out on something is by using StumbleUpon. StumbleUpon is a free program that connects users with things they want to see.

HOW DOES IT WORK?
Here is a demo showing exactly what StumbleUpon does for the user.

In short, StumbleUpon is like channel surfing on a television. You click a button on a toolbar and it brings you to a website. These websites are chosen based on preferences you set when you download the toolbar. Millions of people are already using it and thus it makes it a very effective promotional technique.

For example, let me show the the statistics for this website after I used StumbleUpon to promote it:

Green - pageviews

Blue - unique visitors

Orange - returning visitors

This was on the first day of launch - 243 unique hits viewed this blog. This is the power of StumbleUpon. If people rate your site up on StumbleUpon (by pressing another button on the toolbar), more people will view your content.  StumbleUpon is by far the most efficient way of getting people to your site.

AGENDA

1. Add more content to your website/blog
2. Begin promoting your website/blog
3. Write an article on Triond
4. Write an article on Associated Content
5. Complete a few offers on CashCrate

WEBSITE PROMOTION
Squidoo - Create a lense with related content from your website and link to your website.

StumbleUpon - Thumbs up and review the site you want promoted.

more to be added later

Squidoo is a website in which users create pages relating to a certain topic (called lenses). You can write about whatever you want. The great part about these lenses is:

• You can add a link to your site to them. This brings more traffic and gives you a free backlink
• You get paid by Squidoo whenever your lense gets viewed.
• You can add Amazon/E-bay/etc. affiliate products and get paid if someone buys them
• You can add any kind of referral link to your lense
• Lenses take only a few minutes to create

Here’s a lense about making money online which I created in fifteen minutes.

Squidoo is an excellent opportunity to get more traffic, referrals, and cash.

AGENDA

1. Finalize your niche idea
2. Create a website/blog for this niche
3. Begin to add content to the website
4. Join CashCrate and complete a few offers
5. Write an article for Associated Content
6. Write an article for Triond

OPTIONAL

1. Spend money on a domain name and/or hosting

MAKING A WEBSITE
As per yesterdays post, you should have determined a niche for your website/blog by using SEOBook’s free keyword suggestion tool. Now you need to actually create a website. I prefer using Wordpress for self-hosted blogs but Blogger is a better tool if you want a free website. Both are platforms for creating a website/blog and they give you a yoursite.wordpress.com or yoursite.blogspot.com domain, respectively. You can also choose to buy a domain ($10/year) and have them host your website on it.

Whichever option you choose, you should now create a website with your keywords in the domain name. This will help rank your website in search engines. If you have a website, write a few articles utilizing your keywords in them. For a blog, write a post introducing what it’s all about.

CASHCRATE
Cashcrate is an easy way of getting money. You are paid to complete free offers (i.e. filling out a short form or entering your zip code). This money can be used to buy hosting and a domain name for your website.

Estimated Earned Today: $15

AGENDA

1. Get a Paypal account.
2. Join Triond and write an article.
3. Join Associated Content and write an article.
4. Create a StumbleUpon account.
5. Determine a niche for a blog or website.

OPTIONAL

1. Join Digg, Reddit, and other social bookmarking websites.

WHAT IS PAYPAL?
The first thing you need to make money online is a way to receive the money you’ll be making. That’s where Paypal steps in - it’s a free payment processing service from the people that own E-Bay. With it, you can receive and send money.

WHY JOIN TRIOND AND ASSOCIATED CONTENT?
After joining Paypal, you need an initial way to make some cash. I’ve had the most success with two programs - Triond and Associated Content. These websites pay you to write articles about anything you want. Associated Content pays an initial flat rate of anywhere between $3-20 as well as payment every time someone reads your article. Triond only pays when someone views your article, but they have decent rates of an estimated $2-$10/1000 viewers. I have had the best experience with Triond, but you should try out both of the programs and see what works for you. If you need more information, please check out my page on paid writing.

STUMBLEUPON
To attract visitors to your articles, use StumbleUpon - a social networking service that operates like this:

1. Someone visits a site and clicks the thumbs up button on the StumbleUpon toolbar.
2. Visitors using StumbleUpon visit your site. They can click the thumbs up button as well which, in turn, sends more people to the site.

StumbleUpon is a very effective way of sending traffic to a site.

FINDING A NICHE
Although money can be made from writing for Triond and Associated Content, your best income opportunity is creating your own website or blog. Money can be made on websites through selling advertisements. To create an effective money-making website, you need to pick a niche for it - determine what it will be about. Here are some tips:

• If you are passionate about something and want to frequently write about it, create a blog. Blogs are actively updated.
• If you want to make a static low-maintenance page with only a few articles on it, create a website.
• To help determine a niche, use SEOBook’s keyword suggestion tool. An effective niche needs to have people searching for it on search engines. Type in a few keywords on what you want to create a site about and find one that has people searching for it.

DIGG AND OTHER SOCIAL BOOKMARKING SITES
Digg and Reddit are similar to StumbleUpon in that they send visitors to a page. They are less effective, though. The only reasonable success I have had with them is when one of my articles reached the front page of Reddit. I received about 20,000 visitors from it.

ESTIMATED MONEY EARNED TODAY
$4-$10

Congratulations! You’ve done all you need to for today. Check back tommorow for the next days advice or read these helpful articles elaborating todays post:

How To Write Articles People Will Read

Because writing can be a big source of online income, it’s important to learn how to write effective articles that people will want to read.

STEP ONE: BE CONCISE
Internet users don’t want to read long passages with lots of extraneous detail. They want information in an easily-digestible format that can be absorbed quickly.

• Break up your ideas into short paragraphs.
• Use bolded titles to separate different parts of an article
• Use numbered lists or bullet-points.

STEP TWO: INCLUDE PICTURES
A picture truly is worth a thousands words on the net. Images are pleasing to the eye and can be used to break up text or draw the reader in. You can find some copyright-free and high-quality images at sxc.hu.

STEP THREE: WRITE FOR THE READER
Pretend you’re reading the article that you’re writing. Would you take the time to read it? Would you Stumble it? Is it Digg-worthy material? Constantly think about what you can do to improve it.

STEP FOUR: CHOOSE POPULAR TOPICS
Even if your article is amazing, writing about how you saw a pretty bird on your windowsill most likely won’t be popular. From my experience, these are topics that people read about:

• Breaking news
• Humor
• Technology
• Making money online
• Blogging tips
• Self-improvement

Nowadays, everyone wants to make money online. I mean, who wouldn’t? Just think about it - you earn from the comfort of your own home. You can get paid to complete surveys, write, blog, and even read e-mails. Sound too good to be true?

That’s because it is.

THE COLD, HARD TRUTH
Making money online is hard. In fact, you should be assured that at least 90% of what you find online will either be a scam or will make you fractions of pennies. People that promise you thousands of dollars if you buy a $99 e-book are lying. The people that say the people who promise you thousands of dollars to buy an e-book and then tell you that they have a system that actually works are lying. The only thing these people want is to make money off of you.

THEN WHY SHOULD I LISTEN TO YOU?
This blog will be devoted to my daily adventure of making money online. I will provide tips, advice, sites that work, blogging advice, and my discoveries. I’m not here to sell you anything or get you to sign up for meaningless affiliate programs. I’m here to provide the truth.

GOALS FOR 2008
By the end of 2008, I hope to be making at least $3000/year ($250/month) solely from online ventures with a small time commitment.

CURRENT STATS (WILL BE UPDATED CONSTANTLY)
$15/month passively from Triond.com.

TOTAL PROGRESS: 6%

JOIN ME
The majority of programs and websites I recommend will not cost you a dime. They won’t even cost you a penny. An investment of one or two hours a day is all you need. This makes it accessible to anyone.