A lot of confusion surrounds the term, make money online, and most individuals fall under the failure statistic of 95%. Are scams to blame? I mean, sure, of course, we could blame the scams, there is after all more than enough of them making the rounds. Selling dreams and fairy tales is kind of the go-to when it comes to alleged online gurus. Well, so to break it to you, Harry Potter does not exist in real life, and fairy tales will not be making you an income. Patience, hard work, and skill, or the willingness to learn a new skill will be needed to make it work.
Having a Blog/Website is very important to the success of your online venture, and in this article, I will explain why.
A Website – The Basic Foundation to Make Money Online
Any person who is or ever has built a business knows to take having a website extremely seriously. A website is the hub of your online presence and communication. Most of the online products sold these days, get most of their visitors by advertising that there is no need for a website and that you would only need social media to drive your traffic.
Now I ask you this, have you ever enjoyed being continuously spammed by ads or other things while on Facebook? The answer is no, no one is a fan of constantly being spammed, and as such, these methods can be rather harmful to your business, as most will not appreciate it and leave, giving you a business with a spammy reputation. The goal is to make sales, not to annoy/frustrate people.
All companies that exist in the real world have local points of producing, and distributing products, be it a store, warehouse, office building, or even the hotdog stand on the corner. The online world is not that different in this manner, and having a single point of advertising/selling your products/services, will only help you succeed. Most websites, and/or blogs have a way for people to edit, add, and/or delete content, without it affecting your traffic by much.
It is after all much easier to drive visitors to a single point than it is to drive them to multiple points, and all smart marketers know this. To put it bluntly, it’s much easier to drive visitors to a single point that contains all your affiliate links than it is to drive visitors in multiple directions all at once.
The internet exists out of websites and blogs, and as such, you can be certain that they will never die out. Now, websites and blogs create the foundation of the internet, and as with structures in the real world, the longer they stand with a domain included, the much more valuable they become. Now as for products, they might as well come from the corner store, as most of them do not last very long, or they are easily replaced by a newer, better version.
By designing a website, you can promote any product you want, and when it eventually reaches its expiration date, you can easily toss it and replace it with a new one that would barely even affect your traffic. By having multiple sales pages, you are setting yourself up for an ultimate fail, when that product caves, and leaves you with nothing to hang onto. And as a pro tip, visitors love new content and the products that come with it.
Now I am positive that you’ve come across at least one program, promising a great earning rate, without the need to build a website, and I will not be arguing the case under any means, however, again I ask, what happens if the product loses interest, gets outdated or worst production stops? Many marketers have earned or are still earning their riches by promoting products, platforms, and programs, pledging you can do the same without a website. This again is not completely untrue, but with how shady affiliates are using spam to promote, not to mention the recent updates, a lot if not most merchants have switched to requiring affiliates to provide evidence of a website to prove their credibility.
These days, credible and reputable businesses that provide top-notch affiliate programs will call for affiliates to use only the specified marketing methods provided by the company, and with most, you will have to provide a URL to your website, and the traffic count to prove the reputability of your site. Nearly all businesses keep their affiliates on a short leash these days, by enforcing specified methods of promoting their products.
Your possibilities become endless, if you create a website/blog, the sky becomes the literal limit. It leaves you with the possibility to explore as many avenues as you like, and if it fails, well, you will always have your site to fall back onto.
Okay, So there Will Still be a Few Questions, Right?
Which Website Builder Should I Use?
WordPress is still my top recommended choice, even after all the years. It is a builder that gives you a lot of creative freedom, and the silver lining, it is favored by Google. There is a bit of a curve to learning it, but once you have, no looking back.
What About Hosting?
Getting hosting sounds like a no-brainer right, how hard could it be? Well, the hosting you choose can literally make, or break your website, so not as simple as it sounds.
Here, let me explain…
All companies, whether online or in the real world, have a reputation, with some having a good reputation and others a bad one. Now when shopping you want a company with a good reputation because their products/services work and will help you be successful. Well, it is the same when it comes to hosting, choose one with a bad rep, and you will struggle to rise in ranks, or garner traffic, no matter how hard you work.
What gives a bad reputation you ask? – Simple. A Bad reputation is given to hosting companies that will allow for any kind of content to be hosted on their servers, content which includes, spamming, malicious, illegal, adult, duplicate, hate content, and so on.
Now most people will report a site like this, and once that happens too many times with the same host, then that company garners a bad reputation, losing their creditability, and unfortunately, the other websites hosted on the same servers, will also suffer under this. If this happens, you could have the best website ever built and you will still struggle miserably to get any rankings and thus any traffic. If the company fails, so does your site. Keep in mind, that very cheap is usually very cheap for a reason. So choose Reliable Hosting, with a good reputation.
What About Content – What do I have to Write About?
Well, firstly, we have to understand the meaning of content. Now the content can be a variety of things, from comments and dialogue to videos, images, audio, and most important of all, text, all of which will be published on your website regularly. As a general rule of thumb, more content means more traffic.
Okay, so a bit of good news. The content you create is your website itself can be about any topic you want it to be, obviously keeping in mind that certain topics aren’t going to do anything for you, for example, “tips for selling ice in Alaska”.
Keywords play one of the biggest roles in the online world, especially when it comes to driving traffic, so you will have to do research and make sure you create content about something people show an interest in. Don’t stress, human beings have a lot of interests, and the options are big and wide open, so you will still be able to create content about your hobbies, skills, interests, passions, and so forth. After all, you do want to have a little fun while working.
Not a big fan of writing? No need for stress. Though it is always my recommendation that people write their own content, I also understand that some aren’t capable of doing so for various amount of reasons, whether it be a lack of skill, not having the time, or even because you are still learning. Whatever the reason is, you don’t have to stress, just outsource your work, there are plenty of professionals who can be paid to do the work and allow you to focus on what matters more, the marketing aspect of your site.
How do I get Traffic/Visitors to My Site?
Once you have your website, and the content has been uploaded, you will need online traffic, otherwise known as visitors. Now, there are quite a few ways of driving traffic to your site, the more popular methods include, but are not limited to;
- Writing quality content
- Viral marketing
- Article marketing
- Rank in Google (SEO, Search Engine Optimization). The higher up the list you rank in Google, the more traffic you will generate. Face it, who goes looking for info on the 10th page, you look at the first few, am I right?
- Creating videos
- Paid traffic
- Social media
How do I Make Money Online with a Website?
The ways with which one can make money with a website are numerous, the most popular methods being:
- Selling advertising space
- Selling products and/or services
- Product reviews
- Selling affiliate products and/or services
- Promoting and/or recommending Amazon products
- Google Ad-sense advertising
Keep in mind these are only a few of the popular ways, and that there are many other methods with which to make money from a website.
My Own Experience – What Can Go Wrong Without a Website?
I started back in 2012 and created my first website on Blogger as a cheap method to get started. (I evolved to WP in the meantime) It still exists, still brings in an income, and has evolved over the years. Now, this list includes things that could or have gone wrong, as well as how having a website helps get me through it and keeps me on top of the changes that occur.
Affiliate programs do go under – Yes that’s correct people, it could happen, and if it does it could bring your entire business down with it. Now, before you have an anxiety episode, let me explain. You don’t have a website. You’ve spent all your time, effort, and more than likely some cash, on promoting this single product/service. You’ve posted about it on social media, created a good reputation for yourself, and dispensed a bunch of content containing your links, probably even paid for advertising.
After weeks upon weeks of hard work, time, and effort, you’re finally earning a good amount of money. This is all great, paying off and everything, and then you wake up one morning to find that, people are losing interest in your product, or even worse, you get notified it’s closed down. Now what, you may ask? You have to go back to square one and start the entire process all over again. When you have a website of your own, this won’t be such a stress inducer, as you can just replace the product/service with a new one, and not lose your clients, visitors, and so forth, all in one go.
2023 – Yes, the year 2023 can be a reason you fail, but let me elaborate. In this day and age, social platforms like Facebook, for instance, disapprove of affiliate links being put in posts, unless you know how to maneuver and use them correctly. And yes, you can always still use sales pages, but it’s 2023 folks, everyone’s been there, everyone’s seen them and people just aren’t that interested in the older ways anymore, they don’t attract attention. What does however always attract interest? Good, quality content, which is unique and interesting! The fact that you are here, reading this article, proves my point.
Now, there are of course still other methods of earning money online, but they too have their issues, for example, I have seen many successful YouTube channels be shut down, hacked, or suspended, some of them having had millions of subscribers. Years of time and effort torched in a single moment; with no way of getting it back. Even social media accounts can lose interest, or again, be shut down.
In summary, the additional methods you use for earning money online should complement your website/s, so should something happen to any of them, you can always fall on your security net, also known as your site/s. The chances of your WordPress website being shut down are extremely low unless you obviously go with sub-par hosting or publish content that raffles too many feathers.
How do I build my first WordPress website? Where do I start?
With WordPress being the most popular website builder there is, it is no surprise that there are hundreds of teaching programs out there, that teach people how to properly use the platform. There are a few that are beyond great, whereas others do not keep up to date with the latest plug-ins and the like. My recommendation above all the other programs is most definitely Wealthy Affiliate.
Not only do they teach you how to use WordPress, but there are lessons, guides, and so forth about the entire online marketing network, from how to promote, to driving traffic, and even how to create the perfect website. WA also provides you with all of the tools needed to build your website, promote your products/services, and drive traffic. They even teach how to do Keyword Research, not to mention they are partnered with one of the world’s leading keyword research tools, Jaaxy.
They have an above-standard support system that is always active, so you will easily be able to get help or the answers you need. The program itself has a great reputation and is a very credible all-in-one platform.
Not sure what type of venture to incorporate with your website? Feel free to read more about the Popular Methods to Make Money Online.
Well, this is it for now. Please leave a comment if you would like to add something to this post that would make it more interesting like tips or feedback from your own experience. Have a question that demands an answer, you can leave that in the comment box as well and I will get to it ASAP.
Have Yourself an Awesome Day!
