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Why Is It So Hard To Make A Living Online?

Why Is It So Hard To Make A Living Online?

It should be easy, right?

After all, there are 7.6 billion people in the world, and, according to internet stats.com, as of December 2017, 54.4% of the world’s population has access to the internet. This means that it’s within the realms of possibility that around 4 billion people can get on the net and buy something every day.

And the numbers get even better. The site, Wearesocial.com, has the latest data from 2018 that shows that close to $2 trillion will go through the net this year. The time spent by a user on the internet is 6 hours a day, yet another positive that anyone wanting to make money online loves to hear.

However, despite all of these favourable statistics, it is very difficult to scratch a living out of your internet connection.

One reason it is difficult is that there is an enormous amount of competition out in the ether, 1,630,332,579 according to millforbusiness.com, that’s roughly one website for every three and a half people on the planet!

With so many websites potential customers have a huge range of choice. And then we have the huge, well established, dominant websites like Facebook and Amazon who attract enormous numbers of eyeballs, every second of every day.

However, it’s not all bad news. Of those 1.63 billion websites, only 15% of them are active with the rest being made up of mainly parked domains. Of that 15% of active websites, a large portion of them are sitting on the net looking like a shop that’s been shuttered up, it’s there but no one is inside doing any updates.

So, there is possibly less than 100,000,000 websites that are actually open for business. Admittedly that’s still a lot, and provides you with a lot of competition, no matter what field you decide to go in.

And it almost seems that with every one of those 100,000,000 websites comes the latest thing that will make you an instant millionaire two days ago if you just follow their system, for a small fee of course.

It is through these seemingly insurmountable obstacles that you are trying to navigate a pathway to that internet lifestyle that you’ve heard about and dream about.

So what happens?

We chase every new get rich quick scheme that lands in our inbox with promises of vast riches, we scoop the next one up like the weekly Lotto tickets wishing that this time our number will come in. I know what I’m talking about here because I’ve been there, done that.

And it is the completely wrong thing to do!

Here’s one tip that will save you a whole lot of time and money – find one way to make money and stick with it, and perfect it, and spend all your energy on it, until it starts making you money. Then, and only then, should you look at developing something else.

Okay, problems solved, now you’ve got the secret sauce, so everything’s going to be tickety-boo. If only it was that easy, but noooo.

The idea is simple and correct, but it is putting it into action that is so damned difficult. You have to figuratively pound the pavements before you can choose your road to riches.

I will take a little shortcut here and assume that you have decided that the way you want to make your web fortune is through affiliate marketing. So now you have to decide on which affiliate commission programme you want to join.

Sites like Clickbank, JVzoo, WarriorPlus, Amazon, Commission Junction and a host of other sites offer affiliate programmes so the first step is to choose one of these.

Next, you have to decide what product you are going to promote. This means that it is crucial that you research the product, what are its payouts, how popular it is, is it up to date, is there a market for it, are there any unbiased reviews on it, and so on.

Once you have settled on a product you then have to decide how you are going to make your money.

Will you set up your own site, collect emails and then send people to the affiliate site, will you buy ownership rights to the product and sell it yourself on your site, how about just creating ads and sending the clicks straight to the affiliate site, or maybe you could set up a review site and recommend the product to others (if you do this make sure your review is honest!), or maybe you could set up an online shop with the product and related offers on the same site.

That’s a lot to decide on but still easier than the last cog in your financial wheel.

In real estate, there are three things to look for in a property, location, location, location.

Online the three most important things to making money are traffic, traffic, traffic.

There is no getting away from this. Without traffic, nothing moves so you want as much traffic as you can get. And not just any traffic, but qualified traffic, traffic that is packed full of customers who are looking to buy what you are selling.

And traffic is the area that nearly all wannabe internet lifestylers crash and burn. You need to learn how to attract eyeballs to your deal, you need to learn it quick, and you need to dedicate 90% of your time driving traffic to your deal. There is no escaping this fact.

Although I’ve highlighted some stats that show the competition that you’re up against, at the end of the day all of that is irrelevant if you can drive traffic.

The process outlined here is not for the fainthearted, you need to be dedicated and single-minded in pursuing your internet dream.

However, there are ways to shorten your journey.

What if you could use a system that uses the Amazon affiliate programme to create an income by setting up online stores that promote a whole range of Amazon products?

What if setting up your online store is simply a matter of pushing a few buttons? Or if you want to do it faster you can get an expert to do all the heavy lifting for you. In a very short time you could have 1, 2, 25 or 50 online stores promoting Amazon products in a week.

Then you can get into the most important part of the process, DRIVING TRAFFIC.

Earlier in the article, I talked about how you need to learn the different ways to drive traffic. What if you can get help to learn all the latest marketing strategies to drive traffic to your online store? What if, in addition to done for you inline stores that are ready to rock n roll, you also have access to a comprehensive series of training videos to help you master the different marketing techniques online, both paid and unpaid?

What if you want to get your online business up and running and earning an income in days, not weeks or months?

That’s a lot of ‘What ifs?’ but the great news is that it is possible.

Go here now and see all of your ‘What if?’ questions answered (and more).

All the best in pursuing your online dreams.

P. S. If you are struggling to get your internet dreams realized, go here now and get the dream start you’ve always wanted.

This is a guest post written by Brice Taplin. If you would like to be considered for a guest post contact me.

How to Make Money Using Amazon

Making money online can be a bit confusing, that is why we love making money with Amazon. You see, this online store giant offers a free affiliate program that you can join and cash in on commissions from almost all of their products.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?
This is where you earn a commission from a company by promoting a personalized link that they give you. Amazon’s is free to join and is better than most in my opinion. You see with other companies, in most cases, you are promoting one item. If they buy great, if not, your customer is cookied and if they come back within a predetermined period of time you can still make money on that one item.

Amazon, on the other hand, pays you whether they purchase the initial item or a completely different product,
For example, if someone clicks on your affiliate link and buys something, whether it is a new bike or a pot holder you earn a percentage of the commissions. The cool part is that they do not have to buy the initial product that they clicked on. So if they click to buy a shower cap and then end up buying a toaster from Amazon instead, you still earn a commission. Pretty cool right?

So What is The Best Way to Get Paid? The Amazon Affiliate Store!

Check it out for yourself here: http://amazingaffiliatestores.com

Most people direct link to a product. This is fine. You can earn commissions that way. The better way though is to build Amazon Affiliate stores that have been researched and target a specific niche. This way you have a chance to entice them to click on many of your links, giving you a better chance of earning that commission.

So How Do You Create These Amazon Stores?

1) You have two options. You can build them out yourself if you are technically inclined and know how to use wordpress. There are several plugins and templates available on the market. Many are good but you have to be careful because some are glitchy or do not conform to Amazon’s guidelines. Be very careful which one you choose because if you are not following the rules, Amazon can delete your affiliate account without notice.

2) You can simply buy pre-built stores for you. No fuss. No muss. You can actually be up and running in less than 5 minutes. These stores are pre-researched for you, built for you – according to Amazon’s guidelines, and delivered to you in minutes.  All you have to do is input your affiliate link and start promoting your store.

I have used both of these methods and I prefer the second one. I like knowing that my stores are up and running fast so I can promote them and start making money immediately, instead of taking hours to research and build them. There is a company that can even do this for you and have your store ready in minutes for less than $10 per store. How great is that?

Check it out for yourself here: http://amazingaffiliatestores.com

This is a guest post written by Caterina Christakos. If you would like to be considered for a guest post please contact me.

Scams and Limited Markets

Scams and Limited Markets – Guest Post – Robin Joyce

What is a scam?
-a dishonest way to make money by deceiving people;
-a confidence game or other fraudulent scheme, especially for making a quick profit.
It is a scam if NOBODY makes any money from it (except the fraudster).

What is NOT a scam?
If you do not profit, but other users do, it is not a scam.
You need to have provided the time and skill required to make any product work.

Read reviews before buying
I have saved a lot of money and time by Google searching
‘review + product name’ or ‘review + product creator name’.

You need to read the first 3 pages of results to find independent reviews,
as many are written by affiliates, using text supplied by the creator (and not objective).

Reviews are useful to understand the product:
is it what you need and are you capable of operating it?

Better reviews will explain the upsells (oto) and the value they add.

If you have booked a webinar, check the reviews so that you will know the
product and price.

For you, no purchase means no loss to a scam.

Criteria of a scam.

Legit-Review.com applies the following
6 criteria in reviewing products:
1. Are they providing so many false promises, or not?

2. Real Users’ Experience Rating.

3. Is there any Honest Money Back Guarantee or not?

4. If they have any Scam Approach or not?

5. Our Expert Team rating after using.

6. If there are so many OTOs, UpSells, DownSells ?

1. Are they providing so many false promises, or not?

This is not easy for the buyer to know, unless the promises are too incredible.
Key promises are that ‘a newbie can do this’, ‘you do not need a site, list..’
can secure a sale and have to be true.

One of the key failings of products is their inability to generate traffic without
depending on spamming.

As most newbies lack a list, traffic has to be resolved for the product
to be of any value.

For most products, I will need support.

Often, I send a question to the seller during the launch period.
I am amazed that many questions either are never (!) answered,
or take 3-4 days to receive a reply.
From this, I can judge that support will be substandard.

2. Real Users’ Experience

For a new product, only insiders (including beta testers) will have had a chance to evaluate it.

You need to wait until late in the launch period, with the hope that independent reviews will be published.

If none is found, you have a choice:
buy it with the discount and bonuses,
or buy later when reviews are available.

You might find reviews of the product creator. If the creator has an excellent reputation for value, this is probably going to be a quality product.
If the reputation is negative…..

3. Is there any Honest Money Back Guarantee or not?

This seems straight forward, as you see one at the foot of each sales page.
However, some vendors do not pay out, or use delaying tactics.
My sites were with a reputable host, which abruptly terminated hosting in the
middle of the year. (I am now happily hosted by D9.)

A refund for the refusal to continue hosting? No.

If you pay by credit card, in some countries, you can reclaim from the
card company.
Otherwise, you need to check the rules of the market: JVZoo, Warrior+Plus, etc
and Paypal for resolution.

4. If they have any Scam Approach or not?

Webinars provide opportunities to avoid searching questions, as well as creating
the greed atmosphere with luxury cars, houses, pools, sun tans
(I do not mean to boast = I do mean to boast).

Webinars give you little written information to review afterwards.

In contrast, you can check a sales page and email the vendor.
Which affiliates are promoting it?
If Partnership to Success folks are involved, I am happy.
If not, I am wary.
Checking testimonials is useful (even if it is often boring) to understand
the challenges and how the product (and buyers have met them). If the
testimonials lack product detail, you may need more assurance about the product.

5. Our Expert Team rating after using.

You may have to wait for this until after the launch period, but some independent reviewers move quickly.

6. If there are so many OTOs, UpSells, DownSells?

OTOs, UpSells, DownSells are components of a sales funnel, which is needed to grow a profitable business.
Once the buyer has bought the initial $9.95 product, other more-expensive products are offered.

The issue here is whether, or not, the initial product can fully function
without buying other products.

In an honest sales funnel, the additional products will make the initial product work better, faster or provide additional sales, but the initial product should not need other products to operate as promised.

If this is not the case, the buyer might have to spend $50 or more to buy the combination of products to function.

A lesser issue, but sharp practice, is to offer an upsell at $49; then, if it is refused, the same product combination is offered at $29.

This is cheating any buyer who paid $49. An honest downsell is to reduce the $49 package, by a bonus or two, to offer it at $29.

Reviews often identify this cheating and save you money.

Limited Markets
These are not scams, but offer buyers less than they might expect.

Arbitrage (risk-free profit):
This is buying in one market and selling in another market at the same time.

Apart from having to buy as well as sell (twice the work), a risk-free profit appeals to most of us.

I teach arbitrage and it always disappears quickly.
You have to be fast in and leave before the rest arrive.

There is no mass market for arbitrage.

Also, the software designer/seller has a head start on you for the same business.
We have chosen making money online as it has millions of potential buyers.
The buyers are far less in the following examples:

Domain Names
A number of professional firms operate in this market. Between them, most of the arbitrage opportunities have been recognized and eliminated.

Why do you think that you will repeatedly find what they cannot?

The only people interested in robinjoyce.com are me, those who share my name
(and want a website with our name) and speculators who want to hold us to ransom. Nobody else!

Today, we can use another suffix (mine is .site) to avoid dealing with the speculators.

Also, the speculator has to buy, or control, the domain name. This is an investment in inventory.

Done for You System for Physical Goods- Arbitrage from Selling Books

A new service received a large amount of coverage about 6-9 months ago.

It is a done-for-you system of buying books cheaply from US book stores and selling them to Ebay/Amazon in the US.
You rent the software, anywhere in the world.

It will identify where you can buy low and sell high (arbitrage), you make the buy/sell transaction and they will transport the books for you.

Risk-free profits! Nothing could possibly go wrong, could it?
I left this great opportunity alone, possibly missing out on earning a fortune.

My reasoning:
The software designer/seller has a head start on you for the same business (books).

Everybody was focused on the same books sector
– market saturation
– too many people eating from one plate.

Even if everything is done for you, the risk is yours.

You are dealing with only two buyers:
Ebay and Amazon, who control (and can change) the price.

Complaints reported:

1. Profit margins falling to almost nothing (standard in arbitrage opportunities).

2. Postal delays, books arrive late, and Amazon has cut the price.

3. Long time to find opportunities.

I would add:

if anything went wrong, I am 8-10 time zones away, possibly asleep, and have
few US contacts who can help in such operations.

Finally, from the complainant:
‘I will be requesting a refund but they had some funky 365 day refund policy implying they weren’t going to refund anyone until they had tried the system for 365 days.’

I suggest that you fully understand how such novel systems work before investing
and know who is responsible for what.

Done-for-you does not guarantee that it is risk-free and trouble-free.

If you see Arbitrage and/or Risk-Free Profits in a promotion, be skeptical,
very skeptical!

Review and understand products before you buy them.
You will be glad that you did.

Profitable business as it should be done
Buy from the top IM people. They have earned their reputations from providing value
to thousands of satisfied customers. Following their methods brings you success.
The place to start is on this website. Check the wonderful products NOW!

Also, there is an excellent complementary product, which is the complete works of
a leading UK internet marketer with a global reputation:
Michael Cheney ‘s 7-Figure Franchise is the best compilation of his work and the only external course material John endorses on his excellent Partnership To Success program (on which I am privileged to be a student).
It will make you serious money.
Check it out here: 7-Figure Franchise
Click here:
www.robinjoyce.site/likes/7ff

Sincerely,

Robin Joyce

This is a Guest Post written by Robin Joyce.

My Recipe for Internet Marketing Success

What happens when you blend quiet desperation, an entrepreneurial spirit and a few bitter surprises?

You might just end up with a winning formula for sweet online success…

Four years ago, I was spending 40+ hours every week in a soul-sucking, mind-numbing, life-wasting job. I would sit in my dingy little office that wasn’t even really an office; in my half-broken chair; doing a bunch of mindless, boring work in exchange for an insultingly tiny so-called salary. I was constantly struggling to pay the bills and keep food in the house. There was never enough money left to do or have anything special – ever!

Every day, in spite of the distress I felt, I reminded myself of my life-long dream of owning my own business. I had many failed offline attempts behind me, I suppose just to keep me feeling trapped in that dead-end pit of despair… but, still I dreamed every minute of my work days about getting out of there and being my own boss. I wanted to use my love of food and my knowledge of health and nutrition to help people to improve their lives while bringing in a reasonable income for my efforts.

And, then life intervened to change everything…

First, my eye-sight which had always been very limited, began to further deteriorate. This led to a surgery that was supposed to improve my vision, but which actually resulted in near-total blindness.

Then, as you may be predicting, my full-time job of more than 11 years was snatched away from me in the blink of an eye. Oh sure, lots of politically correct excuses were thrown around having to do with corporate restructuring and similar nonsense. But, obviously, it was because of my blindness and the refusal of the company to even try to provide reasonable accommodation for me so that I could continue to do my work. You may be thinking how terrible this must have been for me and my family… But, it has turned into one of the biggest blessings of my life…

Once I recovered from the shock of losing my vision and my income, I adjusted to the stress and uncertainty that comes with being unemployed, I began to pick up the pieces and search for ways to survive the personal and financial disaster. It was in this apparent crisis that I found several opportunities for generating income online and was delighted to discover that I could share my passion for natural health and great food and make money at the same time.

A few months after my job ended, I bought a course called Inbox Blueprint (Thank You Anik Singal!) – followed by many other IM products, and thus began my immersion into the world of internet marketing. I was the very definition of newbie and made a ton of mistakes to prove it…

Fast forward a couple of years – and believe it or not, I’m actually making this online marketing thing work for me. It has been anything but easy – there definitely is not a button out there that you can push to start filling buckets with money as it falls from internet heaven (believe me, I looked)… But, I am slowly, steadily, sometimes painfully, and with much help from some very talented sighted people, actually making it happen – and if I can do it, anyone can do it.

The beautiful part is that now I get to write about food and healthy living every day and never ever have to call someone else “boss” again. You can see the fruits of my labor of love at: http://www.naturalhealthwiseblog.com

This is a Guest Post written by Karen Mcray.

Online Business Success Checklist

Online Business Success Checklist

Let’s start with some facts:
A lot of jobs are now replaced by machines / AI (artificial intelligence) – According to an article on Business Insider, it is expected that more than 3,500 retail stores will be closed in the next few months in the US. That would mean there is a huge job cut happening. There are lots of reasons why this is happening, one of it being the popularity of ecommerce.

Mobile devices vs computers – very obvious: what is the main device that you use to check your emails these days? Do you wait until you sit down in front of your computer in the evening, or simply check your emails with a quick swipe on your mobile phone?

IoT (Internet of Things): A lot of devices are now connected to the internet and data can be accessible remotely online. That includes even the microchips of some cows in the farms!

Purchase behaviour change – with the ease of buying online, and also the rise of auction / shopping sites like eBay, Amazon, TaoBao, AliExpress, and various online stores, we don’t really need to go shopping anymore (well, apart from the enjoyment, if you do enjoy it). Shopping can be done entirely online, from the comfort of our homes.

Why are these facts important? For me, these clearly show that we are in an entirely new era. An era where people are living a ‘connected’ life – everything is around the internet.

That simply means that if you want to run your own business, it needs to be online.

Running an online business, especially when starting up, also has its benefits:
Very low cost upfront: you only need a computer with an internet connection. You do not need to rent an office, hire any staff, buy furniture etc. That means you can save a lot of money to invest in marketing instead and you can start right the way!

Accessible anywhere: as long as there is a reliable internet connection, you can basically run your online business anywhere you like. Beaches with a cocktail, on a cruise, when traveling… you name it.

Fast turnaround, fast results: things happening online are so fast, that you can shorten the buying cycle tremendously.

Easy to optimize: every marketing effort that you have done online is trackable. It is very easy to identify what does or does not work, hence very easy to optimize your marketing effort to get best results.

There are several items that can assure you to be able to run a successful online business: Have the right infrastructure in place A large part of online business can be automated, when you have the right infrastructure setup.

What you would need is:
– A good web hosting account
– A WordPress website setup
– A good email marketing service a.k.a. auto-responder
– An easy-to-use page builder

In a nutshell, you need a place where you can quickly setup a squeeze page and place a form on the page which feeds email addresses into an auto-responder. You would be able to build a list that you can keep marketing to. This is commonly known as “List Building”.

You can follow the step-by-step instructions of my ebook, 3 Steps to Profit, to have this built.

Promote a Lucrative Offer: Affiliate marketing is quick and simple. Basically, you sell a product, and get a commission. However, a lot of ‘affiliate marketers’ are only earning a few bucks here and there. This is because they don’t understand the power of upsell. You need to find an offer which has a low-priced front-end product (hence it is very easy to sell) and then a high-priced back-end product would be treated as an upsell.

Scalable
A common perception amongst affiliate marketers is that SEO (or free traffic in general) is a long term strategy. Let me point this out, that’s not quite the case.

In fact you should be good in driving quality traffic, and this can be done much faster with paid traffic methods.

Eg. If you use Solo Ads to drive traffic to your offer, then once you have optimized your campaigns right, you can easily scale it up with buying more traffic. You cannot scale up your business if you rely purely on SEO.

A Proven System
It is very true that there is no point in reinventing the wheel. You don’t have the calling or mission to create the most original and unbeatable money making business here. (OK maybe you do, but let’s start small.)

The easiest and fastest way to build a successful online business is to follow a good, proven system. A system that somebody else has spent their hard-earned money to test and tweak, and you simply deploy it to earn the cash.

All you need to do is to grab a copy of an ebook named “Wifi Millionaire” to get yourself started. For the price of a cup of coffee (or less), this is really a no-brainer.

From Wifi Millionaire, you will learn how to utilize an already-proven system, to run a lucrative online business from anywhere in the world with Wifi connection.

This is a Guest Post written by Leo Chan.

Leo currently runs a blog on which he writes information on how to run a successful online business. You can read his blog here: http://www.leochanonline.com