Affiliate Marketing: Article Marketing, Pay-Per-Click, and Making Money Online

How I Make Money Online: My Internet Marketing Story and Guide

How I got started in online marketing and how you can too. Resources and more forthcoming. Please, if you’re interested at all in internet marketing bookmark this lens and keep coming back. I will try to make this one of the best “FREE” resources online.

Remember this before continuing, some of what I am going to tell you requires NO PURCHASE OR MONEY, so don’t let the programs and offers out there fool you. This can be done for free.

Feel free to re-post any information on this article, as long as you link back to it. That’s all I ask.

Thank you for stopping by, and I honestly hope that this lens has helped you out.

Good luck!

P.S. – One of the biggest reasons that I’ve made this lens is for my friends and acquaintances that wanted to know what I’m doing online and how I’m making money from internet marketing. I’ve spent too much time repeating information to people who offer to help and end up proving to only have a mild curiosity that I’m just basically sick of repeating myself.

A Friend and Affiliate Marketer: My Story

Late November 2009,

I was working for a well-known company for $24 a night. Three-hour night shifts forty-five minutes from home for something like $8 an hour. I came out $8 after gas (I was driving a full-size truck that actually got somewhat decent gas mileage). The warehouse in which I was working just so happened to be very close to a Taco Bell.

It wasn’t pretty.

I was 21. Still living with my mother and had nothing better to do during the winter months than to watch TV or get on the internet. However, I would sometimes stop at a relatives house to watch It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia on Thursdays.

One night, I stopped in he had a blank sheet of paper in front of him and was typing random sentences into Google and writing down search results. I had not idea what he was doing. He began telling me about how a friend of his (more of an acquaintance of mine) was making pretty serious money online (upwards of $1,500.00 a month).

I couldn’t believe it. I immediately thought that he was going to give me this spiel about how it wasn’t a pyramid scheme and it was perfectly legal and so on.

Well, he did. And, I told him, “Man, you do realize you’re getting pulled in hook, line, and sinker to a pyramid scheme, right?”

He explained to me that this wasn’t a pyramid scheme. I was still pretty skeptical. I mean everything he said screamed SCAM and PYRAMID SCHEME. So, I just sat and listened and decided to do my homework later when he wasn’t around.

It took around two weeks of me reading everything I could find online about the type of “business” this was and the program that his friend had recommended. Turns out, it was real (or for everything I read, it seemed to be).

One night, I was bored and just browsing more of the same online, still reading and debating, I decided to check out the program’s website. To sign up it was around $40.00 and I figured that I had blown my money in far worse ways (scratch-offs, poker games, horse races, fast-food rip-offs, alcohol).

So, I decided to whip out my credit card and let the dice fall as they may. I didn’t have anything to lose and it seemed if his friend was being genuine that I may have everything to gain. And, I did know quite a bit about the guy and he was pretty big into religion, had a steady job with a local business, and worked in a family-owned store. He also hung around a good crowd of guys that I knew better than him, so I wasn’t going in totally blind.

Long story short, almost two years later I’m paying my rent with my “online money” or the money that I make from affiliate programs. Sometimes the money is better and sometimes it’s not, but I’m consistently making my rent every month at the very least.

The program that I bought into (thinking that it was probably nothing but a scam) was WealthyAffiliate.com and I haven’t regretted my decision at all. If you do decide to put down a little money for anything affiliate marketing related, this is where to lay it down. I recommend this to the beginner or intermediate 100%. Also, the biggest resource on the website is the forum.

Yes, that is a sales link. If you sign up through that link I do get paid. I’m not going to lie to you. The way I see it, if you are going to make a living online because of something that I introduced you to or persuaded you to sign up for, then you shouldn’t mind that I’m making a little bit out of it.

P.S. – The price of the full membership of the website has went up, but they’re introducing two separate packages: Gold and Platinum. If you’re a dedicated person and can manage to put thirty minutes or more a day into it, you can make quite a bit of money while you sleep or work at your day job until you can do it full-time.

It takes persistence and determination. Most importantly it takes more than reading, it takes ACTION.

Recommended Programs, Websites, and Resources

Wealthy Affiliate – The only place to learn how to be an affiliate marketer and not be ripped off.
 
Clickbank.com – Lots of products to promote that people love to buy. Some products seems “scammy” and those will be a harder sell, go for those with the more professional looking websites. If you think something smells fishy, then the person landing on their page will probably be thinking the same thing.
 
*Also, there are products on Clickbank that I wouldn’t promote. Some of them do seem to be overpriced or have very little helpful information.
 
PotPieGirl’s One Week Marketing – She’s very helpful and one of the best internet marketers around!
 
 
These two below can be found by a simple Google search:
Google Keyword Tool – Do your research here.
Google Trends – See what’s hot.