The above chart taken from Statista shows ecommerce sales from 2002 – 2014; while ecommerce accounted for just $72 billion in retail revenue generated in the US in 2002, it was responsible for $359 billion in 2014. It has been predicted that this number will only keep going up.
Now, more than ever, we rely on the internet for purchases and transactions and it’s time for you to get your own slice of the pie.
If you’d like to tap into income generated online, now is the time. Below are some ideas to help you get started:
1. Sell Your own Products: One of the best ways to make money online is by creating your own products; when Zig Ziglar said that “you can get anything you want in life by helping others get what they want“, he wasn’t lying.
Find out what people want, a need in the market that you can fill, and create a product that can solve this need; the more relevant, innovative and unique your product is, the more you stand to make.
2. Promote Affiliate Products: If you’re reading this blog, you most likely know Zac Johnson; Zac’s story is impressive because he started making money online before most people knew it was possible to make money online; he did this by promoting other people’s products as an affiliate marketer.
Oftentimes, it is difficult to create a product; maybe you don’t have an idea, or time, or resources; all hope is not lost, and you can make a lot of money by promoting other people’s products as an affiliate marketer.
Another successful affiliate marketer is Pat Flynn of the Smart Passive Income blog; Pat makes over $100,000 every month, and a good portion of that income comes from affiliate marketing.
If you want to make money as an affiliate marketer, study Zac, study Pat, read their articles and observe what they are doing; you’ll be better off as a result!
3. Work as a Consultant: You can also get your own portion of the growing internet revenue by working as a consultant.
If you don’t have specialized skills that can help people in specialized industries, you can try learning how to help people get results online; master techniques like setting up a website, content marketing, Facebook ads (or advertising in general), conversion optimization and other techniques that can help businesses grow online. Once you’ve mastered these techniques, start reaching out to businesses and letting them know how you can help.
If you’re not persuaded that there’s money to be made as a consultant, then perhaps you will be impressed by Ross Simmonds’ success story; he started made $250k annually, as a solopreneur, during his second year of being a consultant online.
4. Start Freelancing: An estimated 34% of the American workforce today are freelancers, and reports have shown that this number is not slowing down anytime soon.
The massive growth of the internet, and wide embracement of ecommerce, is playing a major role in the preference for freelancers, and you can benefit as well.
Identify key set of skills you can offer to businesses as a freelancer, decide on your rates and prospective clients and look for ways to get clients that are in need of freelancers.
Here are some resources to help you get started as a freelancer:
- How To Prepare Yourself To Quit Your Job And Go Freelance
- The Definitive Guide To Getting Paid As A Freelancer
- 12 Job Boards for Freelance Writers
- The Ultimate Guide to Getting Freelance Writing Jobs
People like Steve Chou of MyWifeQuitHerJob.com have recorded good success with ecommerce stores, as a result helping the average Joe to see that it’s possible to make money through ecommerce stores.
Starting an ecommerce store is a great way to get your own portion of the growing internet revenue and, unlike most service businesses, there’s no limit to how much you can scale.
Prestashop and Shopify are just a few of the top online store software you can use, and here are some resources to help you create your own online store:
- How to Build an Online Store With Shopify
- How to Build an Online Store With Prestashop
- How to Use a Blog to Increase eCommerce Sales
How to Create Awareness About Your Services
If you carefully analyze all the ways you can benefit from the increasing internet spend, you’ll notice that it mainly has to do with attention.So you want to be a freelance writer, how do you get people to know about your services? You want to promote your products, affiliate products, ecommerce store or consulting business, how do you create awareness about what you’re offering?
Here are some suggestions to help you create awareness about your offerings:
1. Manually Reach Out to Your Prospects: This technique is especially effective for freelancers; you can’t start randomly pitching individuals who did not opt in to your list with a link to buy your product or affiliate offers, but there’s nothing wrong with reaching out to a business if you feel you’ll be a great addition to their team.
Compile a list of potential clients you’d like to work with as a freelancer or consultant, identify a key person who will be your point of contact at the company, and start pitching as many businesses as you can to let them know about your services.
I’ve done this with great success as a freelance writer, and I share my process in my new ebook, The Freelance Writer’s Success Starter Guide, for fellow freelance writers.
2. Start Blogging Effectively: While we are easily swayed by the number of blogs available online, the reality is that majority of these blogs are dead on arrival; I’m estimating at least 80 – 90% of blogs to be completely ineffective, and this is due to poor strategy.
For example, some bloggers publish an article a month or an article every other day and expect their blogs to grow, whereas research has shown that the best way to guarantee the growth of your blog is to publish an article on a consistent basis; even if not daily, the importance of consistency cannot be overrated. This is difficult to do, but there are countless resources to help you.
If you lack ideas on what to write about, here are two resources to help you out:
- 135 Blog Post Ideas that Will Make Your Blog Hot
- 10 Types of Blog Posts that Will Help Your Traffic Shoot Through the Roof
3. Leverage The Audience Other People Have Built
If you take a look at your favorite blogs that have hundreds of thousands of readers, you will notice that they have something in common; thousands of blog posts.
Darren Rowse’s Problogger blog published 5,000 blog posts in 5 years, and has since gone ahead to publish more. Blogging Tips here, at the time of writing this article, has 4,701 articles. The same applies to every popular blog with significant readership, and this is not something that just happens instantly; even if your blog will become significant, it’ll probably take a few years and at least hundreds of blog posts.
Does this mean you can’t leverage blogging for success? Not necessarily. You can leverage the audience other people have built; almost every top blog accept guest posts, and this is your opportunity to leverage their audience to grow your business.
Analyze top blogs in your niche, look at the kind of content they love and wow them with your very best content; in exchange, you can promote your product or services in your bio or sometimes inside the content.
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