Straight Facts On How To Make Money Online

This post is for folks who are new to Internet marketing and don’t know which steps they need to take. There is a lot of information out there so in this post I will share the products I use and their all in this one page so you can get started right away.

Let me tell you about the awesome 5 tools that were key to finally open the door to making money online. These 5 tools put together by experts in their respective field will put you on the right path.

You know it is easy to spend a lot money online but how about making money instead? If you are like me you
are on the mailing list of many Internet marketers who send you an avalanche of emails on the latest, greatest, “must have” product that you just need to buy in order to make money online.

Every month we’re bombarded with several product launches all claiming that this is the ONE course/software/
DVD/CD/ebook/system you need to finally start making headway in your online business. So you dutifully click on that order button and whip out your credit card or log on to your Pay Pal account to buy yet another over priced, hyped
up “money-making from home” product.

You need to stop right now! You don’t need these hyped up products to make money online. If you’re already making money and you want to buy a $500 course to learn more than go for it but you don’t need to buy every product the gurus send you way day after day, week after week, month after month.

I was in the same boat as you spending my hard earned cash on products I didn’t really need. It’s sickening to see all the gimmicks and tricks out there that won’t make you any real money.

Now that I’m finally starting to make money in my Internet business I want to share with you the products that I used to make money with my Internet business.

These are real products, hype free, that I actually purchased and I use. They will teach you what you need to get started in this business.

These gems will show you:

• How to get more visitors, but still pay less money, even
  when more and more bidders are jumping in every day

• How to transform your Internet Advertising strategy into
  a systematic, predictable, cash-flow multiplier

• How to find the most profitable products and services
  to promote

• Find undiscovered niche markets with little or no competition

• Multiply the size of your keyword

• Discover the hottest converting keywords

• Create killer landing pages that convert

• Learn how to achieve top search engine rankings

• Pay less money for more traffic

Affiliate Marketing Works

Everything you need to get started in affiliate marketing is detailed by some of the most wonderful and successful Internet marketers you probably never even heard of because they are not part of the Internet marketing
guru hype machine.

They quietly day in and day out make a lot money in the affiliate marketing industry. They know their stuff and are now sharing this valuable, life-changing information to the rest of us.

Please note that this is not a get rich quick scheme. Like any business you will have to work hard, especially in the beginning. There are no free lunches so you will need to invest some money to get started. And despite the claims of some sites out there, there is no such thing as free Google Cash. You will need to pay for your AdWords ads.

However compared to the cost of starting an offline business you can get started without a huge financial investment and you can start part time. If you don’t have a few hundred bucks and time to put into your Internet marketing business than please don’t waste your time and money. You will only be disappointed. But if your serious about tapping into these resources continue reading!

At Last! Get Ready. Set. Go!

First you need to start right now by saving your money and stop buying the latest hyped up product that the gurus produce. Below are the straight facts and the information you need to get going.

This is the product information I wish I had all in one page when I got started. These are the definitive guides you will need to get started on the road to making money online. No hype. No BS.

High Performance Affiliate Marketing

UPDATE – Jeremy Palmer is no longer selling his great e-book so sorry but your out of luck if you’re interested.  You can get the details in this post.   Luckily famous Super Affiliate Rosalind Gardner’s e-book The Super Affiliate Handbook is still available and was updated in 2007 so I now recommend her e-book when it comes to learning the affiliate marketing business. 

The best way to start making money online is by becoming an affiliate marketer and the best way to learn about affiliate marketing is from one of the best, his name is Jeremy Palmer.

Jeremy Palmer, author of the High Performance Affiliate Marketing ebook, is a high performance affiliate marketer. Last year (2006), he made over $1,000,000 in commissions, and among other awards, was one of six winners of Commission Junction’s 2005 Horizon Awards. Commission Junction is one of the largest affiliate program networks out there and you will get to know them well as you begin your career as an affiliate marketer.

This ebook will take you by the hand step by step to get you going as an affiliate marketer.

Read my full review or go to Go to Jeremy’s website. (Price: $49.95)

Go to Rosalind’s website instead. (Price: $47.00)

The Definitive Guide to Google AdWords

Once you have read Jeremy Palmer’s Rosalind Gardner’s ebook on how to become an affiliate marketer you will need to start to drive traffic to your website.

As Jeremy writes in his e-book the best way to get traffic and prospects to your website is via Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising campaigns. And the best way to get started is via Google AdWords.

But as easy as it is to sign up for an AdWords account and set up a PPC campaign you can easily lose your PPC money with nothing to show for it, if you don’t understand AdWords and PPC. You need to ensure you’re setting up and testing your AdWords PPC campaign right in order to ensure that you make money from AdWords not lose money.

The best AdWords course out there that will show you how to use Google AdWords throughly is written by Perry Marshall.

The Definitive Guide to Google AdWords will gently take you by the hand through the entire AdWords process to ensure you’re not throwing money away when it comes to AdWords and PPC campaigns. You can read my full review here or Visit Perry’s website. (Price: $49)

Note: Perry Marshall has written a very helpful e-course called “5 days to success with Google

AdWords” and there’s no charge for it. You can find out about it here: FreeGoogle AdWords Course

SEO Book

The next step is learning about organic or natural SEO. Perry Marshall and his
wonderful ebook will teach you how to drive paid traffic to your website but you also need to optimize your website for organic SEO and the SEO Book written by Aarron Wall is the best SEO book out there.

Aarron Wall is the leading expert in SEO. This ebook is an incredible source of information for you to learn how to tap into the free organic search rankings we all crave. Read my full review of the SEO Book here or Visit Aaron’s website. (Price: $79)

You Are Now Locked and Loaded!

With those three guides you will locked and loaded to start your online affiliate marketing business. How exciting is that! I’m excited for you as I type this! And that is how I felt when I read those three ebook.

I was fired up and itching to get cracking! Those are the three ebooks that I used to learn how to make money online the correct way.

The cost to purchase all three books is $177.95. It was a fantastic investment for me and worth every penny.

If you follow the groundwork laid out in those e-books you will make your $177.95 back plus you should have some profits coming in from your AdWords PPC campaigns.

All three e-books come with 30-90 day money back guarantees so there is absolutely no risk in giving this a shot.

You don’t need to spend $497 or $1,497 on a darn course. Save your money and spend $177.95 and do it right.

You Can Even Get Started For Less Than $100!

If you want to get started fast as an affiliate marketer and you want to start driving traffic via PPC than just start with Jeremy Palmer and Perry Marshall’s ebooks.

For less than $100.00 you can learn…

• How to find a niche you have a passion for
• How to find an affiliate program to promote
• How to setup your website the right way
• How to manage successful PPC campaigns
• And a lot more – everything you need to know to get started in Affiliate marketing is found in those two ebooks.

It’s all there..

• How to test ads and niches using AdWords so you know if
  the niche you’re looking at is worth entering

• Running split Ads using Googel AdWords to ensure you’re
  landing page is converting

• Affiliate marketing principles defined in detail so you
  can succeed

• How to leverage your website design to ensure it’s built
  for website usability to convert sales not just to look “pretty”

• Conversion tips and trick to ensure your website is converting
  visitors into customers

• And a lot more!

Other Resources

Aside from the guides you need to learn affiliate marketing, AdWords, and SEO you will need some non-information products. I will show you a few tools I use to maximize my results.

HTML and Web Design

You don’t need to be a programmer in order to be a successfully affiliate marketer but it does help to learn basic HTML so you can tweak your sites, add new affiliate programs, etc. My college major was in Political Science and I’ve never taken a computer class yet here I am writing this to you in my HTML editor (I use Dreamweaver but more about that later on).

It’s not that hard. The best bet if you’re not very technical is to use templates. You can get some nice looking templates for free at OSWD.org or you can buy some affordable and nice looking templates at Template Monster.

Another route is to outsource it to a designer. You can find a designer by bidding out your design project over at Rent-A-Coder or eLance.

For our needs as affiliate marketers you don’t need a fancy website with Flash and all the bells and whistles. For what you need you can easily have someone at Rent-A-Coder or eLnace do it for you for $50-100.

You will then need to edit your template so you will need an HTML editor. NVU is perfect for your needs and it’s free.

As I wrote above, I use DreamWeaver but you don’t to buy an expensive web design software like DreamWeaver especially if you’re just starting out.

XsitePro is a lot more affordable and it’s been designed for Internet marketers needs and it’s impressive especially if you don’t know anything about HTML. I use it to setup quick website’s that I use to drive traffic to my affiliate websites.
Click here for more information on XSitePro.

Lately my favorite way to setup my sites is using WordPress blogs and the best part is that WordPress is free! My web host offers WordPress as a one-click install so it literally takes less than a minute to setup. I than upload a WP theme that I like (you have thousands to chose from- all free) and I’m ready to rock n roll.

Check out my Web hosting section below for more information about one-click WordPress installation.

Email Service

Building a list is very important to your business. Every site you create must have an opt-in form so you can capture prospects email addresses. I repeat every website you put up must have an opt-in form, period.

I don’t care if it’s a one page site or a 1,000 page sire. You need a way to capture your visitors email addresses. If you don’t do this you’re leaving money on the table.

The best email management service provider is Aweber.

Email marketing and building a mailing list is crucial. It’s a must. You need a reliable auto responder. Aweber is the industry leader in mailing list management.. it is their job to make sure they stay white listed, and they continue to boast “the highest delivery rate in the industry”.

They provide very detailed stats, including how many people opened your email even which links were clicked
on in your message. Don’t make the mistake of going with another cheaper service or via your ISP you messages won’t be delivered and your host won’t like if your sending a lot of messages even if they’re not spam and you have a happy
opt-in list.

I have looked and tested just about all the products out their and the best of the best is Aweber. A lot of the top marketers use Aweber.

Check Aweber out and you will see why. It’s easy to use, they offer awesome support, and you get unlimited auto responders! This is a fantastic feature since as most Internet marketers, I have many websites and I can use my Aweber account for all my sites.

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Keyword research and analysis

This resource is optional but man does it make my life easier! Keyword research is an incredibly important part of your Internet marketing resources.

You can start doing your keyword research and analysis free (Jeremy Palmer Rosalind Gardner shows you how in his her  ebook). But once you get the hang of affiliate marketing and you’re making some money you’ll look for ways to help you find the next niche faster so you can launch your next website or you might want to find more keywords to use for your PPC campaigns.

I quickly got tired of doing my keyword research and analysis manually so I researched the several keyword software products on the market and I went with the best.

Keyword Elite is absolutely phenomenal software! It’s the product of Brad Callen considered on of the top experts in keyword marketing and SEO.

This keyword software program allows you to plug in a root keyword and it will immediately generate thousands of highly profitable keywords.

The software even allows you to create your own Adwords ads and them upload them to your Google Adwords account, without even logging into your account!

Check out their website and you will see over 100 testimonials from happy customers and excellent videos that show the software in action. You can read my full review here or Visit Brad’s website. (Price: $176)

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WordPress SEO

Most experts agree that one of the best ways to rank well with the search engines and tap into Web 2.0′s free viral marketing is to have a blog. The search engines like Google and Yahoo LOVE blogs.

In this article by Mark White who is a business blog consultant, he writes:

“What has also become clear is that Blogs (and Business Blogs in particular) tend to rank highly in the Search Engines, making them an important or even key part of Search Engine Marketing.”

That is the reason I recommend using WordPress when setting up affiliate and Internet marketing niche sites. But there are a lot of nuances when it comes to blogging successfully for dollars (pings, permalinks, and more confusing stuff) so I set off to find help to ensure I was setting up my blog the right way!

I hit the jackpot when it comes to WordPress SEO and blog marketing for my niche
sites called OptiNiche written by WordPress SEO expert Teli Adlam.

The OptiNiche ebook is a must have if you’re serious about learning WordPress SEO and blog marketing.

Teli’s writing style is concise and to the point. She dives in right into the subject matter providing fantastic advice and tips. No filler, no hype, no BS, just like I like it!

What you do get is a lot of useful tips and tricks in an easy to understand way so even if you’re not a techie type you will be able to enjoy this ebook and implement Teli’s recommendations for your niche blog.

I consider this ebook one of the most important purchases I have made in my Internet marketing career. Why? Simple, blog marketing is phenomenal. The search engines love blogs. People love blogs. And I love WordPress.

You can read my full review here or Visit Teli’s website. (Price: $97)

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Web Hosting

If your serious about making money as an affiliate marketer you’re going to need your own shared web hosting account which provide you the following:

• Generous disk space and bandwidth for your websites

• One click install of WordPress, Forums, CMS like Joomla,
  and other scripts

• Options to upgrade easily for more disk space and bandwidth
  once your outgrow your initial hosting package

• Reliable and reputable company

Both of these hosting companies are solid and very popular with Affiliate and Internet marketers.

I personally have been using Dream Host since April 2006. They offer four levels starting at $9.95 per month, $19.95 per month, $39.95 per month, and $79.95 per month.

You can read all they offer by clicking this link to visit their site. Start with Level 1 at $9.95 per month. I’m now paying for one year at a time instead of month to month.

DreamHost provides excellent support, and great support. They also offer one-click install of popular programs like WordPress for your blog, phpBB for your forums, Joomla for your CMS, ZenCart for your shopping cart and more. It’s easy setup via your control panel.

The one thing I don’t like is they don’t use Awstats or Webalizer for stat tracking software. I don’t like the one they use but now I’m using Google Analytics anyway.

I have about 15 sites on one account including a popular Podcast with large MP3 and video files and I’ve haven’t needed to upgrade nor have I had any major issues so I gladly signed up for one year this past April.

Visit Dream Host now.

Host Gator is my second recommended choice for your Cpanel hosting needs. I have not used them but they are very popular with many Internet marketers I respect.

They have a splendid reputation so I don’t have any hesitations in recommending them. If your prefer to use Cpanel for your web control panel then Host Gator is for you. Dream Host does not use Cpanel they use their own custom web panel similar to Cpanel. But I admit I have used Cpanel and I prefer it over Dream Host’s web panel but Dream Host provides more disk space and bandwidth so that is why I’m using them over Host Gator.

However my next projects I will be using Host Gator because even though I totally dig Dream Host I don’t like having all eggs in one basket. If something where to happen to Dream Host and they went down I don’t want to be out of business so it’s always smart to spread your websites across two or more hosts.

I know some very successful Internet marketers that use three or more.

Both Dream Host and Host Gator offer all the goodies you will need so you’re save using them either of these awesome web hosting companies.

Domain Name

Domain names are cheap so don’t skimp out, get your own domain name for EACH website you setup. At $8.95 per domain there is no excuse. It looks professional and it is very important for SEO to have a decent domain name.

Dream Host will provide you with one free domain upon signing up with them but after that or if you go with Host
Gator use GoDaddy.com for registering your domains.

If you have heard negative things about Go Daddy don’t worry about it when it comes to domain name registration they are solid and the price is right at $8.95 per domain (you’re also charged a .20 cent ICANN fee per domain per year so your actual price per domain per year is $9.15).

www.GoDaddy.com

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At-A-Glance Product Overview Cheatsheet (download here)

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How Much Money Do I Need to Start?

Do not believe the hype, you will need some money to get started. Here is your up front cost following my recommendations (doesn’t include your Google AdWords budget since that is up to you to decide. You will have a better
understanding how to budget for AdWords after reading Perry Marshall’s The Definitive Guide to Google AdWords).

 

Total start up cost “must have” (must have based on my opinion as to what worked for me which is how I based my recommondations above):

High Performance Affiliate Marketing The Super Affiliate Handbook and Definitive Guide to AdWords : $98.95 $96.00

Domain name for one year: $9.15

Web hosting for one year: $119.40

Total: $227.50 $224.55

That’s less than HALF the price of the latest hyped up guru info product and you still would need web hosting, domain name, etc.

As I’ve mentioned affiliate marketing was the way I was finally able to make headway in making money working from home. You need to understand the affiliate marketing business model from how to identify a niche, profitable keywords,
to which layout your website should use, and which are the best affiliate programs are all detailed in Jeremy Palmer’s book High Performance Affiliate Marketing.

Once you understand the concepts in Jeremy’s Rosalind’s ebook and you’ve setup your website you need traffic and Google AdWords is the best way to get started in your PPC campaigns and Perry Marshall’s Definitive Guide to AdWords will show you how to do this successfully.

Together these two ebooks is what you need to get started. They pack a mean one-two punch. That is why I have checked them as “must haves” since both will take you by the hand from beginning to end.

Direct linking to the merchant whose affiliate program you have joined isn’t really as effective anymore and Google doesn’t like it that is why you need to setup a website for each affiliate program you promote.

That is why I’ve marked web hosting and domain name registrations as “must haves”.

If you can’t afford $225 you should wait until you can so you enter the Internet marketing business the right way. Trust me in the long run, it will save you money!

The other products are also VERY important and you should have these as part of your arsenal to be successful but with the affiliate marketing and AdWords ebook and your web hosting account and domain name for your own website you
can at least kick the door open and get going.

Time For Action

There you have it the facts about how to make money with Internet marketing and the tools I used.

Read the guides I recommended above than give yourself three months to put everything you have read into action. The time is now. Turn off the TV (it’s re-run summer anyway so it’s easier now to cut back on the TV).

Stop buying other courses, ebooks, etc. at least for this three month period and focus on implementing the strategies outlined in my recommended e-books and in this post.

Check out the “at-a-glance” product review cheat sheet that I’ve put together so you can see all the information side by side in one spot.

P.S. Remember you will be using PPC campaigns via AdWords to get traffic to your website so you will also need to allocate some money for that as well.

P.P.S. If you don’t get Aweber you still need to capture emails addresses! I highly urge your to spend the money on Aweber it’s worth it.

Follow the information provided in these guides and get moving. You can do it!

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