When you’re making money online, a lot of people wonder if it’s possible to have big pay days–without having a list, especially since it takes time to learn how to get everything down.   From my personal experience, there are two main components: traffic and up-sells.  When it comes to traffic, it’s not just about the amount of traffic but the quality of traffic.

Once you start getting enough traffic and making sales, pay close attention to those in which people purchase up-sells since some sales pages convert better than others.  Once you start noticing some trends, push those products every way you can.  A good way to do this, especially if you promote internet marketing products, is to pitch a product  of your choice whenever a crappy one comes along.

That way, you will have multiple pages to make money from the same product.  This is especially important if the quality product that you are promoting doesn’t get much traffic itself (happens a lot).  I have also found that when I use this method, people tend to trust my judgment and go with my recommendation, which means my conversion rates are a lot higher than average.  This is the reason quality of traffic is more important than quantity of traffic.  I’ve made hundreds of dollars a day from pages that only get a few hits a day b/c people are always grabbing the up-sells.  It’s also for this reason that my refund rates are really low.

Once people get tired of losing money by falling for all these “pie-in-the-sky” promises, they just want to hear the truth and will stick with a legit program, especially when they feel that they will see success if they stick with it.  There only other option is to stay in their current financial position, so it’s like a no brainer.

I have been thinking of a way to expand my online portfolio and online presence for some time now.   Even though I didn’t exactly know how I would go about doing it, I knew that I wanted it to be something that wasn’t totally focused on the internet marketing niche like this blog.  I really like doing this blog and being part of the IM niche and helping people.  I just wanted something different that could stand on its own and find a method in which I could get paid by PayPal so that I would have a way to make some quick cash, especially for the holidays or emergencies.

At first, I thought that I would go ghostwriting, but the only problem with that is that I am not good with deadlines and stuff like that.  I like to be able to work around my own schedule and do as much or as little work as I want.  I also don’t like the fact that as a ghostwriter, you have to bounce from one job to the next in order to keep the money coming in.  It’s not residual like affiliate marketing.  If you don’t work, you don’t get paid.

Then, it hit me — I should open my own PLR  store!  PLR or Private Label Rights is content that someone can purchase for cheap on a variety of topics but then modify for their personal use.  The cool thing about having a PLR store vs. ghostwriting for clients is that not only do you not have to worry about deadlines because you can create new packs whenever you want, but more importantly, the income is residual just like with affiliate marketing!  You can put up a pack once, and it will sell for ever — and you still get paid by PayPal!

You can also use your PLR store to generate multiple income streams.  In addition to having your packs sell from being found in the search engines, you can make even more money by running PLR specials (in a place where you will find tons of buyers and have the potential to make $100s/day and beyond) or by e-mailing your PLR list and telling them you have new packs available.  If having your own PLR store seems like something you’d be into, click the link below to get started for just $27.00 – price recently lowered, displayed upon check out!

Start Your Own PLR Store Today!

PS I’ll keep you advised of my progress and let you know when I have everything up and running and packs for sale.

With the new year fast approaching, I thought it would be a good idea to come up with what all call “My 2011 Internet Marketing Game Plan” as a way to keep me organized and focused and improve the overall state of my business.  My income increased in comparison to the previous year, which is good.  It, however, was not where I wanted it to be.  This let’s me know that although there are things that I should continue doing, there are also things that I need to do that I haven’t been.  With that said, here’s my plan of attack.

1. Continue to expand my blog: There are more reviews and blog posts on the way.  However, I have decided to not solely focus on product launches.  I first took at stab at product launches because they are scheduled and organized, and I thought it would help me stay organized.  I have realized over the last year, though, that there are a lot of product launches I have no desire to participate in because the products suck, so I am going to be writing about products that have already been released but still get search traffic as well.  I started doing this but am going to get more into it.

I recently put up an opt-in form on my blog (thanks to my subscribers).  I am going to start actively building my list.  I have always been told that if you want to make big money, you need to have a list.  I know this to be true because it’s how all the big gurus are able to make such a large amount of money in the shortest amount of time.  That being said, it’s also a big responsibility.  You can’t just pitch product and product because everyone else is doing it.  You have to focus on building a relationship with your subscribers and providing them with valuable information, resources, and tools they too can use to build their businesses, or your list will be meaningless.

2. Build multiple income streams: In addition to actively building my list, I am going to generate multiple income streams outside of this blog by promoting physical products that pay-per-lead (pay a flat rate vs. a percentage of the sale).  On the up side, I am going to be able to work in a variety of niches (I’m already in one of them) outside of the “make money” niche that pay considerably more money per sale (products I want to promote at least).  On the not-so-up-side, it is going to require me to learn a completely foriegn methodology apart from what I am used to.

Fortunately though, I have found a proven course to teach me everything I need to know (thanks to the recommendation from a highly-respected marketer).  I just have to make time in my schedule to go through it.  Well, that and the fact that it aint cheap (almost $100).  I, however, am cheap and do not like spending money.  If it works as well for me as it did for her, it will more than be worth it.  I know for certain that the products I want to promote already get lots of traffic.  I am also thinking of doing a case study and stuff (will have to see how it goes).

That’s my plan, so far.  What’s yours?

More often than not, when people find out that you can make real money when it comes to making money online, they are often in search of some “miracle” or quick fix.  The truth is that it doesn’t work that way.  It’s gonna take some effort on your part, but it is so worth it.  I mean, how many other jobs do you know where you can do some work once time and continue to benefit from that work for months and years to come?

When I use the word years, it’s no exaggeration, either.  I am still making money off stuff that I did two years ago before this blog and before I really knew what I was doing and used nothing more than free sites like Squidoo and Hubpages to promote my stuff.  I don’t mess with it or maintain it in any fashion whatsoever.  The money I make from these  things truly is on autopilot, and I really do “make money while I sleep.”

Today is a good example.  Today, I had to get up bright and early to go to a doctor’s appointment.  I feel like crap, have a fever, and got no sleep last night  Yet, by the time I got back from my doctor’s appointment at 11:00 a.m., I had made $45.28.  I know it’s not the hundreds or thousands you are used to seeing in those often over-inflated Clickbank screen shots, but it’s money.  Interestingly, it came from something I did months ago!  The only “work” I have done today is write this blog post.  🙂  Now, I am going back to bed.

I thought I would share this with you in order to give you some perspective.  I hope it helped.  🙂

Whenever you first start making money online with affiliate marketing, the first place you usually start is with Search Engine Optimization (getting your stuff seen in Google and the other search engines for your desired keywords).  There are a number of reason for this.  First, it’s free.  Secondly, you gain knowledge and skills that you use later down the line in various other methods like paid advertising at zero cost.

However, there is a down side to using Search Engine Optimization.  In addition to the time it takes, there is the school of thought that you have to write a bunch of articles to make it work.  Well, this is not true, which is good for me because I am kind of lazy.  🙂  Instead, the trick is to write only a couple of articles and get them ranked for as many keywords as possible.  There is, however, a strategy to this.

Let’s take a product from the internet marketing space since that’s my main niche.  Before you ask, this technique does work in niches outside of internet marketing.  I have done it in the “learn Spanish, gardening” and “dating/relationship” niches as well.  Oh, you should also know that search engines only count the FIRST 60 CHARACTERS, including spaces! A letter = 1 character.

Jonny Andrews recently released a product called “Underground Money Buttons.”  If I were going to write a review to promote this product, I would use product-related keywords.  I would first make sure I used common niche keyword phrases  in my title–making sure to keep them at 60 character max.  For example, I might say something like the following:

“Underground Money Buttons System Review – Is It a Scam”

If you look at this example, you will notice that the title is fewer than 60 characters long and that I used common niche keyword phrases like “review,” “scam,” and “system.”  More importantly though, I wrote the title in the proper word order. For instance, this title could get me ranked for “Underground Money Buttons System,” “Underground Money Buttons Review,” “Underground Money Buttons Scam” and others.

Word Order is important because if I were a user typed in the keywords “Underground Money Buttons Review,” the keywords “Underground,” Money,” “Buttons,” and “Review” would be highlighted.  The actual keywords you optimize your page for will vary depending upon the popular keywords people use to find stuff in your niche.  You should also use said keywords throughout your article in the proper word order as well as in your tags and page description (introduction, if you are creating a Squidoo lens).

When you first decide to take the leap into the wonderful world of internet marketing, one of the first things people tend to do is throw statistics at you and tell you how impossible it is.  Some of the most common statistics are that it takes 100 visitors to your page on average to make a sale or that it can take a month to make a sale using article marketing.

Usually, if you haven’t made a sale by this time, lots of people assume that their page sucks, and they want to scrap it and start over.  One of the things people seem to forget is that there are a number of things you need to take into consider when it comes to why your page or article hasn’t made any money: content, choice of keywords, or something as simple as where you place your links.

I recently had an experience with the latter.  I had written a review for a product I had used and knew it was awesome and high-quality.  When I got ranked for it, I just knew I was going to make a boat load of money.  However, when the product launched, no one was visiting the merchant page to buy, even though they were leaving comments and telling me how much they liked my article.

I knew something was up but wasn’t sure what.  I knew my content was good because people were leaving comments and telling me so.  I checked my statistics and knew I was getting found for highly-targeted keywords.  Just for fun, I decided to move just one link before I went to bed.  When I woke up the next day, the same article with the same content and keywords made $94.36!

I decided to write this post because I learned a very valuable lesson the other day.  The lesson of the day is to never delete your work!  Lots of times, if we spend hours doing something that doesn’t make us money when we think it should, we trash it thinking it sucks.  This is a mistake!

First, you might be able to modify it and re-use it somewhere else (as long as it’s your work).  Second, writing one article can often spawn a slew of new ideas.  Most importantly, though, you could be missing out on money (and big money at that), especially if it is a higher-priced product.

The other day, I was going through my articles checking out the ones that had been around awhile (like a year+) that hadn’t done anything for the sole purpose of staying organized.  Thankfully, I got distracted by my niece and stopped what I was doing.  The following day, it happened.

One of my articles that was like 2 years old that had always gotten click outs (people visiting the merchant page) and was at the top of Google, due to the lack of competition but had made any sales–until the day it did!  How much did this one sale make me, you ask? $150.00!