The best secret I can share is that there are no secrets to making money.
When Facebook, Google, and Amazon were started their founders had no idea that the companies would grow exponentially and make them all billionaires. These men were innovators and were handsomely rewarded. But, alas, all I can do is follow the money making advice, tips, and suggestions of those experts and gurus and hope to make a great deal of money.
Until recently I was on the mailing lists of several Internet marketing gurus. I signed up because of the free product they offered me, usually something to build traffic or find profitable niches or getting my Web site to the top of the search engines. I soon learned that most of these gurus offered similar advice.
- Find a niche
- Build a website or blog
- Find affiliate products that are relevant to your niche
- Get subscribers to your email lists by offering an incentive like a free ebook, video or course
- Send out regular emails about affiliate products
- Promote your site and get traffic from social media, search engines, articles marketing, advertising, press releases, joint ventures, etc
That is a broad overview of how to make money online from Internet marking. There is nothing secretive about any of this. There is a plethora of FREE information about all of this all over the Internet. What is good about ebooks and video training is that the most important parts of the techniques are in one location so you don’t have to surf the net weeding out the crap from the useful advice.
But after several weeks of being on these email lists, I unsubscribed to several of them. I got tired of reading sentences like:
“If you are serious about making money then you will buy (fill in blank) today.”
Well, I am serious about making money and growing my business, but I don’t need or want your $997 product. One guru only sent me emails about products that cost a few hundred to several hundred dollars. Supposedly these were all great products that the guru used himself. Apparently I would be a success if I used all these products for SEO, keywords, traffic building, affiliate programs, etc. And these software programs did all the work for me, automating my business so I could only work 15 minutes a day and be rich in a short time.
The sales letters were all great. It made me think that just a few pieces of software were the answer. But on more reflection I realized that it was nonsense. With so many free keyword generating tools available why would I pay almost $1000 to get the same tools? Another ludicrous email was for a money making membership site that cost $800 a month. For this money I would have access to “private” information that would skyrocket my business. (I would have preferred to use that $800 on pay-per-click advertising orsocial media advertising.)
I was also offered $997 packages of information from these gurus. I am certain that these packages consisted of recycled information that had been around for awhile except in a different format. What was once an ebook was now an online video series or DVDs or CDs along with printed material that was probably just a compilation of articles that were once in free directories. A few gurus have even admitted that their $1K packages are really just old material coupled with some new information. The whole thing is valued at tens of thousands of dollars but you can get it for the low price of just one payment of $997.
I was tired of trying to be sold expensive products so I unsubscribed. But I still belong to the lists that also provide useful and free information to their readers.
I know there is a lot more I need to learn about making money online but I don’t think I need an expensive overpriced product to achieve my monetary goals. I will only recommend products that I have tried and believe in. If I don’t think a product or service is worth the money I won’t try to get you to buy it just so I can make a commission. There are plenty of ways to make money that don’t involve selling.
I also like free stuff. And I love to surf the net. I enjoy finding products and tools that can help us to make money more easily,
I am very serious about growing my business without spending a lot of money.
My money making secret is that you can learn to make money online with very little money by using the free and low cost tools available.