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To Make Money OnlineStart By Giving Away The Farm

Guest post by: Teresa Bohannon

Article Overview: A lady asked me the other day how to make money online. She worked for a fairly stable company, but she was truly concerned about everything from the high prices of gas, to potentially devastating election results, to all of the frightening financial failures making headlines this week. She said to me, "I'm all alone in the world. I don't know what I would do if I lost my job." I knew exactly how she felt because I have "been there...done that" and so I spent about two hours telling her how to make money online. ...And it all starts and ends with the word "Free."

To Make Money OnlineStart By Giving Away The Farm

There are three basic keys to success online. Master them and it is almost impossible not to make money. Note that I did not say get rich. Getting rich online--just as offline--either takes lots of luck, lots of money or lots of work, and usually some of all three. And just for note--online or offline--anyone who is trying to sell you a miracle product that they claim will make you rich overnight--without a lot of time, work or money involved on your part—is someone you probably want to research thoroughly.

The word “Free” is the First Key to making money online.

The Internet was built on the word free, and anyone who wants to make money online forgets that maxim at their own peril. Internet users have grown accustomed to receiving free gifts or perks in exchange for giving your their time, attention and traffic. Advertise a site that makes it clear that they must pay for "any basic" value received and chances are good they will not waste their time to begin with. In fact, it is almost a sure bet that they will scroll right on down to one of the other links brought up by their search query.

At the absolute very minimum your visitors expect free content of good value, i.e. "unique" content! Offer them nothing but a squeeze page, otherwise known as a sales pitch and they will be gone in one lightning fast click of a mouse.

So at the very least make sure that your site is filled with good, unique "topically relevant" free content that answers various questions that are, or might be, in the mind of the person considering purchasing your product. This serves several purposes. Good, unique, "topically relevant" free content is the perfect cannon fodder for the search engines and will do more to enhance your websites SEO and therefore the ranking for your chosen keyword than any other strategy you can use.

Once you have good "Free" content to draw your visitors in, then you up-the-ante by adding a valuable freebie in exchange for which they must join your mailing list and give you their contact information.... Why? Because, once your visitor gives you their contact information and joins your mailing list, you have a second or third or maybe even virtually unlimited "quality" opportunities to sell them on the benefits of your product. I say "quality" because if you spam them with sales pitches and junk that have no added value to your list member, they will leave your list forever.

So what are some free things you can give away:

Branded Ebooks. It is easy to do, I include them on almost all of my websites. The key to doing this successfully is branding them with an irremovable link back to your website. The key to doing this truly successfully is to package them with a viral PDF maker such as I sell at LadyWebSoftware which allows people to include their brand in your ebook before they give your ebook away, thereby making it a Viral Marketing tool for both of you. Think of it this way. If you give the ebook to 10 people, then only 10 people will have your ebook with a link back to your website; but if you allow those same 10 people to add their brand to your ebook so they have a greater incentive to give it away, and each of them gives it to 10 people, then 100 people will have your ebook with a link leading back to your website.

Software: Again it is easy to do. I give away lots of free software at my membership site that works almost exactly like the ebooks.

Ecourse: Conventional radio advertising is sold in drive time blocks. They run your ad during morning and evening rush hour and during lunch, so the customer hears it three times. Supposedly three times allows your customer to get the message, and impresses it on their brain. In school they teach a variation of this same mythic trio. In school it is hear it, write it down, read it and you will remember it. The online version of this conventional wisdom says it takes 7 emails for your customer to get the message. Either way, a “truly informative” “topically relevant” Ecourse is merely a series of regularly scheduled emails that you can send out to keep your name and your product in your customer's mind.

Chances to Win: Contests always have been and always will be good. Most people cannot resist the lure of trying their luck. However, make sure the prize is something people would actually like to have. If the prize is shoddy, they will not enter, and if they do enter they will not be too happy with you even if they win.

So for the rest of the story, see the next installment...

To Make Money Online...Start By Giving Away The Farm Success Key Two

****
It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one’s dignity, to work unhampered, to
be generous, frank and independent.
– W. Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965) Of Human Bondage, 1915

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Article Tags: bet, cannon fodder, free gifts, freebie, internet users, keys to success, lightning, lots of luck, lots of money, maxim, miracle product, money note, peril, sales pitch, search engines, search query, seo, squeeze, time attention, time work



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