Choosing a Survey Template from QuickSurveys
With QuickSurveys, you can quickly create an online survey with a pre-designed survey template. There are more than 100 different survey templates available and you can share your survey with other QuickSurveys users. In order to create the proper survey, you will want to choose a survey template that provides the proper questions for your needs. There are several categories of survey templates available at QuickSurveys including customer satisfaction, product testing, website visitor, market assessment and more. You can use these survey templates just as they are or you can use them as an idea of how to create your own survey.
Earning online money with surveys
In some cases, you will want to modify the template so it is specific to your industry or your product. One of the benefits of using a QuickSurveys template is that they have been created by survey professionals. This means that the questions are perfectly written and the survey is designed in such a way to give you optimal results. A survey template is great for businesses that do not have the time, money or expertise to create an entire survey on their own. At QuickSurveys, you can simply select a template and immediately create your survey and start Earning Money Online
Making money with internet marketing
There’s plenty of confusion about what internet marketing is or isn’t but here it is in a nutshell (in my opinion):
“Internet marketing is putting your content in front of as many targeted people as possible”
To start with I have to point out that marketing on the net is as a step above the simpler methods that I have talked about on the blog like filling out surveys or creating content for people because there are no guarantees on how much you will earn. I know this fact puts many people off, especially when they’re just looking for a generic way to make money online without any real “thinking”, but as I’ve said before if you want to make it big on the net you have to think a little outside the box. I’m also aware that many people reading this blog (EMO) have no idea what’s involved in building a website or marketing to other internet users but there’s not actually as much to it as you think.
So as the opening statement goes the purpose of all types of internet marketing is to get your message out to as many targeted people as possible but how exactly do you do that?
Earning online money with marketing
Where does the money come from?
Advertising is probably the main way internet marketers earn money because if you have targeted people with a need accessing your content then those people have value to other online stores/services. The most important point though is that you don’t get paid just because someone “views” your ads, you get paid when they convert into a sale or lead for that advertiser. It’s the pay for performance part that weeds out all of the time-wasters when it comes to who has the right type of content and visitor. I’m still amazed when I see people buying 10,000 popup visitors from China and wondering why they aren’t making millions. You’d also be surprised how many of your favourite online stores have affiliate programs, its big business and everyone from Amazon to eBay are in on it and they’re desperate for more sales, if you can deliver you get paid – it’s that simple and start Earning Money Online
What are you going to build/create?
This really depends on what specific type of internet marketing you are undertaking, the main method is building a website but it doesn’t have to be that, people are now using twitter/youtube/facebook to find the visitors they need but even so having some sort of website as a “base” makes sense. So let’s say you do have a small website, what’s going to be on it? In short its always going to be a combination of content you have created and advertising which is hopefully related to that content, please don’t make the mistake of thinking all types of advertising will make money, if I see one more banner ad for “home loans” on a technology blog I’m going to freak out. Its only related advertising that works which is why Google adsense does so well, you just stick the code on the page and Google picks the right type of advertising content for your website.
You can also look at affiliate programs where you partner with an online store who sell a product that your sites audience will be interested in. It could be anything, say you have a blog that talks about gaming laptops well if you then put up some ads for Alienware who make high performance gaming laptops there will be a percentage of visitors who click through and buy. How many people buy and thus earn you a commission will depend on where you get your visitors.
Where do your visitors come from?
The way I see it there are three main ways the modern internet marketer gets people to see his content:
- Pay per click
This is where you pay per actual visitor based on that visitors circumstances, so who they are and what they are looking for. The two main places marketers are buying traffic from these days are Google adwords and Facebook who also allow you to pay for ads at the side of their pages. The problem with PPC though is that it can cost a lot to learn and especially so if you’re dealing in a competitive market. I was recently talking to a PPC guy on a big webmaster forum and he said unless you have about £3000 to spend learning PPC don’t even bother as you will burn out of cash before you learn anything. The main benefit of PPC though seems to be that you can start getting traffic for targeted terms straight away, which means you’re learning from day one so it appeals to the impatient internet marketer the most. - Search engine optimisation (SEO)
SEO is arguably much more difficult than PPC but its free which is a huge plus. Essentially it means getting your site listed at the top of Google or other search engines for keywords that people may be typing in. The problem is that Google doesn’t really say how it works so working out the signals that may result in lots of free traffic can involve quite a lot of trial and error. There are many large communities (forums & blogs) dedicated to the SEO field and there’s plenty of discussion on what’s working and what’s not, however who you believe and who you ignore can be time consuming /overwhelming, it’s a long and steep learning curve. - Social media
This is the new kid on the block and I should point out that social sites like facebook, twitter and YouTube don’t deliver the same type of targeted traffic as the other two methods. But they make up for this by delivering in a much higher volume and at a cheaper rate too. I talked in my last post about Viral marketing on YouTube and the principle is really the same for all social, create something that people want to share and then sneak in some advertising at the end. I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s possible to get millions of visitors overnight on social media, plus if you’re good at it you might even land yourself a real job with a top company as they all seem to be going mad for viral marketing these days (check out the Pepsi ad below).
So as is probably becoming clear to you there’s quite a lot to this internet marketing business, I’m 1000 words in and barely scratched the surface. Still the basics for getting started are here and if you’re serious about earning money then you’re going to have to invest in learning a skill for the long term.
So where do you go from here? Well there’s a few web marketing blogs that I follow regularly listed below, be warned though that like this site they won’t spell out any money making “system” for you, it’s up to you to put the pieces together. Until next time…
The skills required to be a great webmaster
So building a website is no longer the great mystery that it used to be, but there’s a difference between building a website and building a website that’s successful and makes money. To me it’s a complete package of skills and you’re only going to be successful if you master (at least in part) all of them. Here’s a rundown of what I think it takes:
Earning online money with webmastering
- Some technical knowledge. Note I’m only saying some because you don’t really need to be able to program to build a website, most out of the box platforms look great from the start e.g wordpress, but it is handy to know a little html.
- Design know-how. Again I’m not really talking about this from a technical point of view, just from the viewpoint that you know what looks good and what doesn’t. Having an eye for creating something that people find easy to use is also very important.
- Marketing. Probably the most important factor and worthy of more than just a paragraph here. However you really have to know what you’re doing here if you’re investing money into the business, the only real way to learn is to practice so it’s best to start with a small project/site before going crazy.
- Perseverance. Also very important and actually the one that causes the most failures. It can take much longer that you expect to create a successful site so how are you going to keep going? Also what if it fails completely, do you have the willpower to start again, most people don’t.
- Analysation. Fancy word but all it means is the ability to figure out what’s working/not working for your site and why. This could be anything from what your seo efforts are not successful to why visitors aren’t converting into sales. It’s that ability to interpret stats into action and to adapt what you’re doing that separates great webmasters from the rest.
Five points seems a bit sparse for what can be a huge process, still you always need a base to start from so I hope it helps. Part of the problem I’m finding with trying to document a lot of this website building process is there’s just too much to cover, plus the fact that everyone has their own process for doing things and overloading people with too much info could do more harm than good! Still I hope the tips above help if you’re thinking about starting a site and Earning Money Online
How to earn money from your website
Ok so with this post maybe I’m skipping the complex stuff like how to pick the right market and getting traffic in the first place, but I wanted to show a few different monetisation methods that can be used for almost any type of site. It’s also important to show the end result of all the research and promotion and that there is a path to cash down the line, after all the goal as my site implies is to create an income online that’s both legitimate and passive. So before I list the different “schemes” I have to point out that how much you can earn will greatly depend on the topic of your website and the amount of traffic you’re getting. Often people will understand amount of traffic concept but completely forget the topic part and wonder why their 1000 visitors aren’t generating any profits. With that being said here they are:
Earning online money with blogging
Google adsense
Probably the biggest advertising platform online and the one most people have heard of. Adsense is mostly suited to sites with big traffic and also a wide range of topics as it seems to adapt really well to different visitors and content. Essentially Google tries to show the most relevant advertisement to that visitor so in theory they are more likely to click on it if it’s what they are looking for.
Advantages: No problems with getting paid (its Google after all) and easy setup, it’s just one piece of code. As mentioned it can be really good for large sites with lots of different types of content.
Disadvantages: Google take a pretty big percentage cut of your earnings, around 40%. Prices per click can vary wildly, everywhere between 5p and £5 that I have seen, so it can be hard to judge how much you’re going to make.
Company affiliate programs
Essentially these are just affiliate programs setup by online retailers and businesses to provide you with a commission on whatever sales you generate. For example if you had a weightlifting site you might sign up to a fitness stores affiliate program and integrate their banners and links onto your site. Nearly all will be on a pay per sale basis, i.e. you won’t get paid per clicks but it will always be free to sign up and try them out. You can either find them in a network link commission junction, tradedoubler or just go to their site and see if they have a program.
Advantages: Commissions can be pretty high depending on the store and if you do generate good sales most likely they will give you a bump in your commission. If you can find a company that provides exactly the product/service your visitors are looking for then conversion rates and sales can be really high.
Disadvantages: Payments can on occasion be a problem since you may be dealing with a small company. The most important thing is to build up a relationship with them over time so you know what to expect from them and vice versa. Also it can be pretty time consuming finding the ideal company to work with, a lot depends on their site and how well it converts customers into sales, if there’s a flaw here then it won’t matter what traffic you send them.
Sell advertising on your site
This method of making money from your blog can take many forms but mostly it’s about advertisers coming to you because you have a popular site and they know you have the traffic, I’ve never seen it work when you go out hunting for advertisers. It can range from selling banners on your site to ordinary links but the main principle is that they pay for the advert on a fix cost basis, i.e. you don’t get less or more money depending on how much business you deliver for them.
Advantages: You’re not required to deliver a certain amount of clicks or sales to the advertisers so it’s pretty worry free. Also as mentioned in most cases the advertisers are going to come to you (if you have a big site) so there’s not much work in that respect either, it’s as close to easy money as it gets with internet marketing and start Earning Money Online
Disadvantages: Who wants to wait around for people to make offers on your site? I’d rather be out there making my own deals. Prices for adverts vary greatly and you’re going to have to negotiate for the best deal. Also bear in mind Google has a policy against selling links for seo purposes on your site so you have to take that into consideration.
Sell your site
This is the only one I haven’t done I have to admit because I see it as a bit of a catch 22. IE if a sites making money every month why would you want to sell it? Similarly if your site doesn’t earn money why would anyone want to buy it? I do know people who have sold their sites for good money though, and often it’s to a company who can monetise the traffic much better, i.e. they can now sell their products directly on the site instead of just banner ads/links. You will need to use some kind of broker to negotiate the transfer of both the money and the domain name and they are going to take a cut. Sites like Flippa will allow you to list your site for sale and they also help negotiate the transfer (I think)
Advantages: Can be big money if you get the right company who really wants the site. Leaves you free to work on new sites after you sell.
Disadvantages: Working out a price can be difficult, some people use 15 – 18 months of revenue as a marker for final value but there’s no definite rule. You lose your monthly pay check. Broker is going to take a cut. Also by listing your site on places like flippa or eBay you’re going to get a lot of fake bidders, much easier if the seller comes to you first and you work from there.
So those are the main ways to make money from your site that I know of. Again as I said at the start so much depends on the site you have and the market you’re in. However I have to say that if you have a site that ranks and gets targeted traffic then you’re going to earn money with it some way or another, i.e. even if you do nothing people are going to mail you offering deals. I suppose this is why I spend most of my time building up my sites in the first place and worrying about the money aspect of it later.