Web Designs

I spent a couple hours talking with a potential client the other day only to find out that she wanted a website but didn’t have any money. Just like any other business owner this isn’t the type of person I want to spend the day talking with.

However, instead of cutting them off and going on with my work day I’ve learnt that I can turn them into future clients. My job is building and designing websites that make money as well as doing SEO. Those two things combined can help anyone make a living online.

And the neat thing is that there are enough free resources out there that all I have to do is point them in the right direction. My plan is to take a little time and write some articles, post them on a site and hopefully help people who are currently unable to make a living online learn how.

I want all my clients to make money online but I also want everyone I run across to do the same. If you are making money then I am making money.

I am hoping to get started my new site started this week and I’ll post a link here once I get it going.

I guess there are more “How to Get Rich” websites then there are websites actually selling a product.

The reason for this is most people do not know how to make money online so instead of building a website that sells a real product or service (something they are unable to do) they build websites that sell information on how to make money online.

If I said that 98% of all websites online are not making money, I’d feel like that number was too low.

The sad truth is that there a more people designing websites then there are people making money with their websites. Most Web designers use call centers, newspaper ads, yellow page ads, and other means of off-line advertising to drum up customers.

I am telling you this because I want you to understand that making a living online is not something easily done. It takes hard work and dedication or lots of money.
There are certain steps needed to make a living online and none of the step are more important than the next.

The first of course is the website design.

The purpose of the website design is to get the attention of the web visitor. When someone lands on the site you have 3 seconds to get their attention and keep them interested.

The website design does not need to be flashy, fancy or show off the talent of a Web designer however it does need to be clean, easy to navigate, easy-to-understand, quick to load and have a call to action that will guide the web visitor in the direction you want them to go.

It sounds like we are taking all the hard work out of the Web design by removing the fancy flashy look but that is far from the truth.

The color of the cart button, the background color, the placement of the call to action, the size of the logo, colors used on the site, text size, text color, font, phone number placement, content, and so much more will affect the reaction of the web visitor when they are on the site.

Other words, a truly affective website is an art unto itself.

I did a post on making money online. I wanted to get a little more into some of the things you need to do but the post was getting so long I stoped before saying everything I wanted to say.

One of the things you need to understand is your competition and what your competition is doing.

There are all types of neat little tools you can use to do this, one of them is a plug-in for Firefox called SEO Quake and it is a pretty neat little plug-in.

As you search Google this tool can provide information such as:

• Age of a Domain
• Pages Indexed in Both Google & Yahoo
• Number of Other Sites Linking to a Domain

While understanding your competition is important something that is more important is having a good list of keywords.

Below is a list of a couple tools you can use to find keywords online for free.

WordTracker.com

http://freekeywords.WordTracker.com/

http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

https://www.PayPal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_shop-ext

http://buy.eBay.com/

http://www.shopping.com/top_searches

http://www.Google.com/sktool/#

http://www.Google.com/trends

The things that hurt the most in life are self inflicted. We notice them at the end of our life when we look back at what we’ve done. We are our own enemy and there is a war inside each and every one of us.

When we are young, the little things we do wrong, bother us, as we do them over and over we begin to accept them. It’s no more correct than it was the first time we did it; however we’ve decided it’s just the way it is and no longer let it bother us.

At the end of every day I look back at the amount of work I got done and the amount of time I was able to spend with my husband and kids. No matter how much I get done or how much time I spent with my husband and kids I always feel guilty.

It is because I know that what I do today will affect what I’m able to do tomorrow.

I spend a lot of time talking with people on the phone, through emails and social media sites about the fact that they need more money.

Worrying about money isn’t fun, is it?

But if you didn’t have enough money in 2008, what makes you think 2009 will be any different?

Chances are 2009 will most likely bring you the same results as 2008 did – unless YOU get off your ass and do something about it.

Now, that’s really the heart of it, isn’t it?

There are no secrets, no secret recipes or get rich easy methods. It requires YOU cutting off the TV and managing your time better.

Making Money Online

I’ve got a friend of mine wanting to make some money online. He’s no different than the millions of others wanting to do the same thing. He’ll be heading this way in about two hours and I’m sitting here thinking about what I’m going to tell him.

There are basically four ways to make money online.

1. Selling your own product
2. Affiliate Marketing
3. Blog flipping
4. Google AdSense

Google AdSense

The people who have been successful with this are few and far between, with the average person making a couple bucks a month at best. Most people never see a dime from their efforts.

I’m one of the ones that have been lucky enough to turn $10,000.00 plus a month using a combination of several different ad programs and building thousands of junk sites. Building, monitoring, ranking and all the other wonderful things that seem to go hand in hand with any website became more than I was willing to do and I got out of the business.

It’s not a good business model however you might be able to make a couple extra bucks per month with it. I believe Google pays out after the first 45 days and you have to make at least $100.00 to get paid.

Blog Flipping

I’ve not tried this yet but hope to get the time to start messing with it this coming month. The cash is a lot faster, you can get the money the same week you sale your blog. You basically build and set up a blog, write some articles and stick on it, as well as point some links at it.

Then sell it for as much as you can. You can use sites like eBay as well as several SEO forums to sell the site. Fast easy money, it all sounds good but like I said, I’ve not tried it yet.

Affiliate Marketing

This is where the big boys play. You’ll notice that most SEO experts want touch this area with a ten foot pole. And most people talking about it aren’t making the first Penney with it. This is where you get paid for the paying customers you can send someone.

We averaged about $5,000.00 per month last year in this area and I hope to get into it a lot more this year. I’d say less than 3% of the people that mess with it are able to make a living with it. It’s for the serious marketers and isn’t for the faint of heart.

Selling Your Own Products

If you’ve got a product or service to sell then this is by far the best option. We’ve made our living online for the last 7 years selling website designs. There are times I want to scream but I’d guess it’s that way with any real business.

You’ve just got to keep your head in the game and keeping moving forward.