With the financial climate being what it is – many people are looking to make extra income any way that they can and the internet provides many opportunities. One of these opportunities is that of drop shipping. It offers many advantages and should be something that is seriously considered when selecting which home business would be right for you.

So what exactly is drop shipping? It’s really being the middle man between a manufacturer or a supplier of physical products and the consumer. You will not need to keep an inventory of the products but will place an order once a consumer makes a purchase. The supplier would then ship the product to the address of the consumer, and you will profit in the difference between the wholesale price and the retail price.

So let’s look at the pros of drop shipping:

• You will not need to keep any inventory or stock
• You will not need to ship or package any goods
• Your main task will be in marketing and promotion of products

And what to watch for:

• It is essential that the products that you select to sell are in demand – to discover what is in demand, watch ebay, Google Adwords keyword tool and Google Trends to check how many people are buying and searching for those products
• Keep a close eye on the competition for prices and for products.
• Start small and build up. You will need to smooth out any hiccups with the ordering and delivery processes.

Our conclusion on drop shipping is that it is a viable business model for income, just as long as you do your research.

If there is anybody who is the ambassador of making money from a website – it has to be John Chow of www.johnchow.com. He took his website from £0 to £30k a month in a matter of months. Investing time in a website should be in your financial favour just as long as you take advantage of the different ways that you can use your site to make you profits.

Advertising: Sites such as http://www.adbeans.com or https://adwords.google.com can pay you in exchange for advertising space on your site. They will match relevant private advertisers with your content to bring your a profit, and hopefully new clients for the advertisers. Other sites you might want to try out are http://www.advertisespace.com and http://buysellads.com. Your main focus should be on providing value and benefit for your advertisers, not about getting their money. You will need to provide quality leads to retain your advertisers and their income.

Other advertising opportunities can be found at www.snap.com or even http://www.oiopublisher.com who can manage the billing, rotation and payments for your ad spots.

Membership site: If you are in a position to provide access to people or to content that cannot be found elsewhere on line, you should be charging for it. Welcome to the world of online membership sites. Http://www.sugardaddy.com makes a mint everymonth from their membership site.

Affiliate products: Many site owners write review blog posts for merchants. Another way to make money from affiliate products is to advertise them in your own ad spots, so that visitors will click through to the merchants sales page.

Next steps. Browse through your site and consider potential ad space. To make the most of online revenue opportunities – be savvy and take action that will help you reach your financial goals.

So you’ve decided that you want to sell products online. You’ve selected products, set up a website but are now at the stage where you are looking for marketing channels to promote your products. There are bucket loads of channels that you can use to market your products, whether they are affiliate products or even physical products.

Here’s a list of the most popular ones that are on the web. I suggest that you select a few that you fancy trying out and add them to your marketing plan. Assign a specific measurable goal on your plan too, for example, add 5 of your products to each channel. This will give you a clear idea whether the channel is suitable for promotion of a particular product. Once you find a channel that works for you – then you’ll need to scale up your efforts to make the best of it.

• Social media – Facebook and Twitter via news feeds
• Facebook – marketplace application
• Auction sites such as – ebay, plunderhere.com, bidville.com
• Pay per click advertising – such as adsense
• email marketing or newsletter
• ad in a printed trade industry publication
• local newspaper- in classifieds or via regular column
• blog posts
• ebook giveaway
• white paper
• local event sponsorship
• radio advert
• television advertisment
• online forums
• squidoo
• article marketing
• search engine optimisation
• free web seminars (advertise on Facebook)
• online directories such as hotfrog.co.uk
• relevant industry trade shows
• google products
• Amazon
• Craigslist

There are plenty of other sites and methods that you can use to sell your goods. Many of the ones listed here are free – remember start small and once you find something that works, then build it up. Which ones do you use?

So, you’ve been putting in plenty of effort to build your content, market your site and pull in regular traffic. It’s time to collect email addresses now so that you’ll have your own captive audience to market to. Here are some of the methods that you might want to employ to convert visitors to subscribers:

Tempt with a discount: This works well with pulling in the Facebook crowd too. Offer your readers a 10% discount by signing up to your newsletter.

Free ebook. This technique is popular web-wide. Exchange a white paper or an ebook for an email address.

Free membership. How about the carrot of a free membership to your site in exchange for a sign up to your email newsletter.

Advertisement. This is a trick that the internet marketing experts use. Offer a free ad in your newsletter for businesses who sign up. This is something that you will need to manage though – as you’ll need to record who has which ads in which edition.

Competition/Contest: One sign-up means an entry into a contest to win one of your products or services. If this is enticing enough there is a chance it will go viral. You might want to think about anybody you know who is a popular figure in the community to present the prize. Make it as attractive as possible for the best results.

Put a price on it. Tell your visitors how much their subscription would be if they had to pay for it. People always want to get a good deal or something for nothing. Also add how many people are already subscribed, this will give it some credibility.

If you are already in the process of building your subscriber list – what techniques are you using for conversions?

It’s well known that ‘content is king’ when it comes to the internet. By providing content on your site in a particular manner, you will encourage your readers to return for more. Here are a few types of content that you might want to try on your site to engage your visitors:

Educational articles: Everybody loves a ‘how to’ article. After all, the internet is operating around information – and what better information than the type that educates.  Providing answers will build you some decent traffic numbers. Remember to add the ‘benefit’ of learning something to the title of the post. If I’d just used ‘How to Create Content’ as the title it would not have been so engaging as it is with a benefit in the title.

Tips: Tips are very popular on the web. Nuggets of information that give value by providing insight into the results of experience can save time and effort for readers. They’ll find tips in your niche a short-cut to success and will come back for more.

Lists: Readers find lists fascinating. Not only are they usually easy to read without a mass lump of text to plough through on a screen, they will usually cover the whole breath and length of a topic for a reader to get a ‘big picture’ high level view of a topic. Use bullets where possible.

Reporting. By providing a type of news service for your niche, your readers will thank you and keep coming back to check latest developments. This is how the Huffington Post has gained their success, think about how you can provide a news service with a particular angle.

Resources: Start off with a high level topic for your niche, break it down into small more manageable nuggets. Add to that mix a list of online resources and you’ll have on your hands something that could be shared online on Digg and other social bookmarking sites.

The types of content listed here, when used in combination could raise your credibility as an expert and your site will become a valuable part of the community.

Once you have an internet site that is getting traffic, it is possible to use this to increase your income. Sign up to one of the content ad companies and then every time one of your readers click on the ad shown, you will receive a commission. Let’s look at what’s involved.

Ads are shown based on relevancy. For example if you have a blog or site about tennis, the ads that will be displayed would be related to tennis racquets or tennis lesson videos. The more specific you are in your blogging – the more you could get paid as the ads will be more relevant to your readers.

There are several companies that pay commission for getting clicks from your readers. One of them is Google with their Adsense program. It is free and highly customisable including colours, text and even has a WYSIWYG editor that you can use. Each ad can be set to be a particular size and format. You can sign in at any time to see how much money you have made.

Another provider is AdBeans. Again, you will be paid per click and the ads can be blended into your site well too.

The internet is full of income opportunities – it just takes a little looking around to find the most appropriate methods. Happy earning!

Any website that provides ‘good’ content will improve their prospects of gaining repeat traffic. When I say ‘good’, I mean engaging, informative, well written and easy to read content. So what elements does ‘good’ content have? Here I share with you what makes a big difference for readers:

• Decide on the purpose. Every piece of content that you write should have a purpose and plan to it. Are you writing the content so that the search engines find you – or are you writing your piece as a useful resource for readers? Good content will usually meet both of these objectives in one.
• Share your opinion. Trust is what sells on the internet. The more that consumers feel that they know you, the more likely they are to buy from you. Show some of your personality so that your readers can see into your ‘world’ and get to know you more – and they will spend more.
• Show your authority. Writing content is an opportunity to allow your readers to see that you know what you are talking about. You are an expert on the niche and they will come back to read more about what you have to say.

Remember, the more engaging, educational and informative your content is, the more traffic you will generate. It really is worth the effort as not only will you gain more traffic, but you will gain more sales.

Getting to the top of the search engine results for more challenging keywords is possible – by using a workaround. This makes it possible to target the higher keywords with larger searches per month. You can gain exposure and clicks through to your site.

Here are some techniques that I use on my business to pull in some of that targeted traffic. Apply them to your business and you too will gain more traffic from your niche:

• First: Find Your Keywords and search. Once you have selected your chosen keywords, then look through the first 10 or 20 results that are returned on Google.
• Forums. If any of the sites listed have forums, then sign up and join in the discussion by answering questions, asking questions and joining in the banter. You can set up a profile and/or signature with links through to your sites.
• A free ebook. Offer a free copy of your ebook for one of the site owners to give away to their readers. The site will add a link through to your site.
• Provide engaging content. Submit content to a site. Be sure to write something that is unique, informative and engaging. Add your bio at the end with a link through to your site.

Success in affiliate marketing depends of setting goals. These have to be realistic and attainable. All over the web there are promises of making $1m here or driving a Lamborghini there or living a Caribbean dream lifestyle. However, the realism of affiliate marketing is a little different.

If you haven’t made your first dime in affiliate marketing yet – then you won’t be making $1 million by the end of the month. Sorry to break the bad news. However, the good news is that by setting realistic goals, you can build a good income for every month.

It’s important to set a fixed goal and without it, it’s very easy to get distracted by other ‘sideshows’ all over the internet. Goals are essential to keep the mind focused and action heading in the right direction.

Here are couple of realistic and achievable goals for the affiliate newbie:

• Make £100 through affiliate marketing by the end of the first month
• Make £2000 a month through affiliate marketing by the end of the first year

Setting up smaller goals that are more easily achieved will motivate more. Every time you achieve a goal, you will need to expand it to the next level up. As you meet your goals your income will snowball.

Solving problems is the bottom line of any business. This is what lies at the bottom of all money making too. The more problems you solve and the bigger they are – the more money you will make. You might be wondering what this has got to do with web marketing. Read on and you’ll see.

Lawyers are very highly paid and the bigger the case and more tricky it is to get out of, the more people will pay the lawyer to deal with the problem. The lawyers who make the most money are the lawyers that deal with the biggest problems. The lawyers don’t focus so much on how much money they are going to be making – they are focused on how they are going to solve these problems – and then they can ask for the money.

Let’s apply that to business. The bigger the problems that you solve for people, the more money they will pay you.  By using the mindset of what you can do for people in terms of solving their problems, they more money you will make.

Steve Jobs of Apple, his focus is about giving people products that solve problems. He isn’t obsessing about how to get money from people – he is obsessing about solving problems. The result = money.

Apply this mindset to your business. The internet is all about solving problems and questions. Give them what they want – you can get what you want.