Creating an Income Online - The Basics

I guess you're on this page because you want more out of life, whether it be more money, more time at home with the family or you just feel that there's more to life than the normal daily grind, and you're wondering about creating an income online.

Once you have this thought, you start looking on the internet, but it's very easy after a while to get bogged down with the amount of information and number of people, companies and businesses all clamoring for your attention.

Over the past two years I've been in the same position as you are now and hopefully I've emerged a lot more knowledgeable about creating income online. I hope that this article, which is about the very basic 'whys' and 'hows' of doing just this, will help you.

Why do you want to create an online income?

There are various reasons for wanting to work from home, and you most likely fall into one of the following categories:

• You are a house mum or dad who prefers to stay home with their children
• You're coming up to retirement age, but have only minimal superannuation and don't want to live on the pension.
• Bosses won't employ you as you may be too young or too old, don't have enough experience, or conversely have too much
• Your health is such that you find it difficult to leave the house;
• You've been answering job ads, handing out your resume, going to interviews but getting no response and you're feeling down and depressed.
• The two of you are already both working, but you think if you can generate some extra income you could pay off your home that much soonerThere are any number of reasons for thinking about creating income online, and whatever yours may be, you've decided to give it a go. But where and how to start.

How do you decide what you are going to sell?

It is a good idea to base your home business on something you are familiar with. For example, do you have a trade? What is your hobby? Is there something you are passionate about? People are always searching for information, so perhaps you could identify some information products and services that interest you and have some knowledge about and base your business around this.

How much time are you prepared to put into your business?

You need to allow time for research, for writing articles, blogs, press releases,subscribing to the various social networking sites, finding places to advertise and actually learning the ins and outs of online marketing. Remember, this is a business, and needs work hours allocated just like any other job.

Budgeting and how much you are prepared to spend per week on marketing product.

There are many places you can advertise free of charge and I would suggest you take full advantage of these; however, to speed things up a bit it is also a good idea to take a look at some of the paid advertising you can do, such as banners, AdWords, MSN and Yahoo pay-per-click, and both free and paid classified ads. There are many other options, which you can consider as you get more familiar with the actual marketing, for example the social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace etc.,

How do I know there is a market for my product?

DO NOT underestimate this point! It sounds obvious, but the fact is

that many people do try to market ideas that not enough people are interested in. A very basic way of checking is by searching on Google, Yahoo or one of the other search engines. Type in the name of the sort of business or information you are thinking about marketing, giving a reasonable amount of information - for example don't just put "sewing", put a full description of the type of sewing, such as "sewing quilts by hand". When the search results appear, you will see on the top line it will tell you "Results 1 - 10 of 2,600,000", which tells you that there is a reasonable number of people actually interested in the subject.

How to go about creating the business

Okay, you've chosen your niche, you've ascertained there's plenty of interest and you've made your decision that this is what you want to do. So where do you go from here - how to actually get started. (And I have to tell you, this was my biggest question - I really had no idea of how to go about actually creating online income)

First of all you need to decide if you have the knowledge, the patience and the focus to build your business from scratch, ie. build a website including the capture page, landing page, autoresponders, follow-up letters etc. then creating the marketing to drive people to your site so they will actually buy your product. If you feel capable of doing this, and like the idea of having absolute control, then have a go - there are many hundreds of sites on the web which spell out exactly how to do this.

If this sounds a bit too advanced for your computer/online marketing experience, there are a couple more options.

1. Pay someone to build your website for you, and become an Affiliate Marketer. That is, you advertise someone else's product, and every time you make a sale, you get paid a commission. Nearly every sales site you go to has an Affiliate Link, or you could go through someone like ClickBank, which has many thousands of businesses to choose from, and a very good help centre to guide you.

2. You can find many "business opportunities" advertised on the internet; they differ greatly, and you MUST carry out careful due diligence, which means you thoroughly investigate the company or business you are interested in. A good rule of thumb is the saying that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Some of them promise you the world but once they have your money leave you wondering what to do next; others don't have anything to sell except the idea, and then you have to sell the idea to 10 other people who in turn will sell to 10 more and so on, supposedly giving you a residual income of $1,000s a month. There is no doubt that some people are making a lot of money this way, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

There are some excellent companies around, however, and after following my own advice (!) I found one which does everything it advertises. It is a purpose built marketing system which does most, but not all, of the work for you, which means you can personalize it to a certain extent. The online marketing education is second to none, and it is run by real people, who help you every step of the way, and to whom you can talk both on-line and on the phone. Why not check it out on my website now?

I have outlined only the basics of how to start, and some of the options you have available when you start to consider earning an income from an online business - in my experience it was these first steps that were the hardest.

Keep in mind that you need the three 'Ps" - Purpose, Perseverance and Patience, and remember...

"To get what you've never had,

you must do what you've never done"

I'm 64 years old, originally from the UK, emigrated with my husband and 3 children to Perth, Western Australia in 1976. I moved to Townsville, North Queensland in 1990 where I still live on a 5 acre property with my partner, 4 dogs and a half tame lorikeet!

By Jan Houghton