Are you still trying to figure out how to make money online?

I’ve been making my living online for more than 20 years, 18+ of them full time. People are often asking me how to make money online and I am more than happy to help.

This article is designed to cut through the clutter and get down to the realities involved.

The first thing to realize is that you will actually need something to sell.

For many of you, this may seem painfully obvious. But it should be said that I am amazed at the number of people I come across who seem to believe that buying an app or joining a program of some sort is how to make money online.
When this happens, the person that made the money is the person that sold you the app or program.

Now, if the program, app, ebook, etc.. that you bought has good applicable information, you can apply that information and start to make money online.

Here is a bottom line reality for those who want to make money online or offline. Money is actually made when a product or service is sold.

You might as well hear it from me. If you aren’t prepared to embrace the process of selling, you are simply not ready to make money online (or offline). There is no such thing as a product or service that “sells itself”.

There are products and services that are easier to sell than others. But the bare bones reality is that sales are how money is made.

Now, WHAT you sell is a decision that only you can make. It can be products or services that you create. It can be products or services created by someone else.

Many people have developed incredible incomes selling products and services created by someone else.

Salespeople, affiliate marketers, network marketers, and brokers around the world are making fantastic incomes selling products and services created by someone else.

If you are not creating your own products or services, you should be prepared to do some research to find something that works for you. You may find some ideas in my free ebook: 4 Steps To Creating Online Cash Flow

If you have created or found the product or service you want to sell, there are two big steps you absolutely must do if you want to actually make money online.

These are the two steps I am constantly focused on. Anybody I personally know who are making good money online is focused on these two steps on a regular basis.

Any time I run across someone who is struggling to make money online, I ask them about these two steps and they are typically not focused on them at all.

At best, they are sort of playing with these two concepts. Get these two things right and you will be making money online.

Master these two steps and you will be making STRONG money online.

The two steps are:

Driving Quality Traffic
Converting Traffic To Customers
Now, let’s break these two steps down.

Traffic: I am going to upset a few people with my next statement. There is only one kind of traffic: PAID Traffic. Even the so-called “free traffic” some people are excited about has a cost: Your time. Your time is worth money. Settle that right now. You are going to pay for your traffic with either your time, your money, or both.

When I first started out, I spent a lot of time earning “free” traffic. I participated in traffic exchanges. I interacted with others in discussion forums and blogs relevant to my market. (I still do). When I started converting some of that traffic to paying customers, I put some of that money into buying advertising.

Where do I buy advertising? I buy advertising on Facebook, Google, Bing, Yahoo, various classified sites (including this site), etc… The traffic exchanges I participate in all offer paid options. Today, instead of clicking for credits, I pay for advertising.

Where Should This Advertising Take People?

This is a BIG key to your success. DO NOT, under any circumstances, take your visitors directly to a sales page!
These new visitors don’t know you (yet). Why would they be willing to click a link and hand their money to you so quickly?

When someone clicks your ad, they should be taken to your capture page. This is where step 2 (Converting Traffic To Customers) begins.

Your capture page can be simple. It can be complex. I have run fancy capture pages with graphics and videos. I have run plain capture pages with a headline and some ad copy.

The important thing is that you have a capture page ready to go and that it has copy compelling enough to entice your visitors to give you their name and email in exchange for more information.

The way you get them to give you their name and email is to offer them a bribe. This can be free information, a free sample, a consultation, a free report. This is a critical step in the process.

Your capture page needs to be attached to a series of pre-written messages (via your autoresponder) that are designed to help you build rapport and increase the “know, like, and trust” factor with your subscribers.

As your readers begin to feel like they know you, start to like you, and can trust you, they are more likely to buy from you.

Let’s review. You want to make money online. To do that, you are going to drive quality traffic to a capture page. When they fill out the form on your capture page, they will begin receiving your letters. Your letters contain the information you offered them and links to whatever is that you are wanting to sell them.

Because they are on your list, you can actually sell to them again and again.

This article is intended to be an introduction to the basics of making money online. There are more details of fine-tuning and mastering the various steps involved. But the biggest part is to recognize that you truly want to make money online, you want to get started with these two steps.

Feel free to ask any questions you may have. I will be adding more content as we go along to help you better understand how to master these processes to reach your goals.