Newbies Guide To Getting Started Online

So Let's Get You Started Online….
Creating Content
To make money online you need to build relationships with people through
helpful, informative content.
People are more likely to take out there credit card and pay you money if they
know, like and trust you.
You need to work on getting a horde of followers that are almost desperate to
throw money at you and to this you need to create valuable free content.
You might ask how I am going to make money if I give it away for free.
Well, if you create free content that helps people with their problems and helps
them achieve their goals they will grow to warm to you, like and trust you and
then later do business with you ($$$).
The key is to gain their trust, you have to give (free content) before you receive
($$$).
How People Will Find Your Content
The best way to get your content online and to build relationships with your
readers is with a blog.
Your blog is the first place people are going to find you and then find out more
about you.
You can create your blog about yourself with your own name as the domain name
(www.yourname.com).
Take my blog for example, I’m in the "make money online" niche and I use my
blog to pass down what I am learning for free.
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You can also create your blog about the niche that you choose to get into (more
on this later)
What to blog about?
Before you can start blogging you need to choose a subject to blog about, a
subject you are both knowledgeable and passionate about.
If you’re passionate about a subject it will shine through in your writing and it will
be much easier to create content on a regular basis, much easier to interact with
people and most important it will be much more enjoyable for you.
You don't want to go into a niche that you have little or no interest in, this will just
make life harder for you.
To be honest I couldn't find any niche that I was both passionate and
knowledgeable about when I started out, I am passionate about some things but
nothing to build an online business with, call me boring but that just the way it
was.
But I kept going learning about Internet Marketing and ways to make money
online and it was when I signed up for a coaching program by Alex Jeffreys I
decided to go into the "make money online" niche.
The reason I chose this niche is because I am passionate about passing down the
knowledge I have and to help people build their online business because I know
how frustrating it can be.
There's a lot to learn about Internet Marketing and my mentor Alex Jeffreys has
taught me so much about it but I still have a lot more to learn.
My aim is to pass down to people what I know now and what I learn in the future.
You see, you don't have to know everything there is to know in your niche to get
started you just have to be a few steps ahead of your audience and as time goes
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by you will learn more about your niche and the more you learn the more
valuable information you can pass down to your audience.
The reality of choosing a niche is not only to be passionate and have some
knowledge to get started but you need to decide upon a niche where there is
money to be made.
As long as the niche you choose has a good following who are willing to pay you
money to help them with their problems and achieve their goals.
Here are some niches you might be interested in…….
Weight Loss- People all over the world are wanting to know the best, quickest
and easiest way to lose weight, this is a huge market as you can imagine.
Dog Behavior Problems- People out there who love their dogs but are looking for
ways to change their bad behavior, like aggression, toileting in the house, barking
for no reason etc...
Dating- Single men and women that find it hard to attract the opposite sex are
looking for how to guides and tips to find their dream partner.
Learn to play Guitar/Piano- If you know how to play guitar, piano or any other
musical instrument you could help people with their problems in these areas.
Make Money Online- As you can imagine there will always be people looking to
make some extra cash and if you are just starting out you can use your blog to
document what you are learning as you go from a newbie to a successful
marketer.
Are you starting to see a pattern here?
People turn to the Internet to find a solution for their problems, so what you need
to do is find what problems people have in a certain area and create content to
help them solve it.
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Once you choose a niche you are happy with you are ready to start blogging, you
can start off by writing an "About Me" page on your blog, telling people who you
are, where you are, what they can get from your blog etc...
Then you can start writing your blog posts, just keep it basic starting off, you can
blog about...
ü What you know already in the niche you have chosen
ü Tell your story to hook people in
ü What you are learning about
Have a look around other blogs in your niche and see what people are writing
about then create your own blog post about that topic. Don't copy anyone just
create a fresh new blog post in your own words.
Encourage people to comment on your posts and start communicating with your
readers the feedback you get from your readers will give you more ideas of what
to blog about.
Sign up to forums related to your niche (more on this later) and take a look at the
threads about topics people are talking about. If there are a lot of replies to a
particular thread then it would be worth blogging about it.
The key here is to create as much value in your blog posts as you can so you will
get a following that will look up to you, like and trust you.
Once you have at least one blog post on your blog you can drive traffic to your
blog which I’ll be covering later in this guide.
When you get visitors to your blog you want to encourage them to sign up to your
mailing list in exchange for a free gift (more on this later) where you can give
them more free content and sell them products $$$.
Remember you need to give (free content) before you receive ($$$).
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Setting up your Blog
In this section I will give you step by step instructions and video tutorials to show
you how to get your blog up and running.
Register a Domain Name
You can register your domain name at Namecheap.
· Visit Namecheap and sign up for an account.
· Type the domain name you wish to register into the search bar, try and get
a ‘.com’ domain name if possible.
· When you find a domain name that is available and you are happy with
click on “Add to Cart” and follow the instructions.
· You can expect to pay around $8-$12 per year for your domain name.
Hosting for your Domain Name
Once you have registered your domain name you need to arrange hosting, you
can purchase your hosting at Hostgator.
Here’s a video showing you how to get hosting for your domain name with
Hostgator.
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When you purchase your hosting, Hostgator will email you with your name
servers which will look something like this....
ns7576.hostgator.com
ns7577.hostgator.com
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Update your Name Servers
When you have your name servers you need to update them at Namecheap.
Here's a video to show you how you can do this....
Note: It can take up to 24 hours for your domain name to be live on the internet.
Installing your Blog
Once you have your domain name live on the internet you can log into your
hosting cpanel and install your blog on your new domain name.
To log into your hosting cpanel……
ü Type into your internet browser www.yourdomain.com/cpanel
ü Then log in with your username and password
ü You would have received your username and password via email when you
purchased your hosting
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ü Once logged in you can install your blog
Here’s a quick video to show you how……
Installing your New Blog Theme
When you install your blog you will be given two default themes that you can
choose from but as you will see for yourself these themes look very plain.
So let’s find a theme that will make your blog more professional looking.
You can find hundreds of free WordPress themes on the internet or if you have
some money to spend to can go for a paid theme.
Here are some paid themes you might be interested in…..
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Studiopress
Woo Themes
IThemes
DIY Themes
If you check out my blog you will see the Streamline theme which comes from
Studiopress
This video will show you how to find a free WordPress theme, upload it and
activate it to your blog.
The same uploading process goes for a paid theme.
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Google Analytics
When you start to drive traffic to your blog you need to track that traffic.
You can do this by installing Google Analytics, it’s easy to install and it’s free.
Google Analytics will tell you how much traffic you are getting to your blog and
exactly where it’s coming from.
This information will allow you to work on the areas that get you the most traffic.
To get Google Analytics you need to sign up for a Google account you will already
have one if you use Gmail.
Then you can click the link below to sign up for Google Analytics.
www.analytics.google.com
Here is a video showing you how to sign up and to install Google Analytics to your
blog….
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Plug-ins
Plug-ins are features you can install on your blog and each plug-in has a different
purpose.
The list is endless of the amount of plug-ins that are available and when you get
your blog up and running you will get a better understanding of them and you will
be able to decide what kind of plug-ins you need to install.
To get started here are a few plug-ins I recommend that you install.
All in one SEO- This plug-in optimizes your blog for the search engines.
Akismet-This will stop any spam comments you get to your blog.
WP DB Backup- If there is a crash on your server it is possible you could lose all of
your content on your blog so this plug-in automatically emails you a backup file
daily or weekly.
Google Analytics for WordPress- As you’ve seen from the video above, this plugin
makes it easy to install Google Analytics to your blog.
Installing plug-ins to your blog is pretty simple, here is a quick video to show you
how……
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Setting up your Domain Email Address
Now you have your blog up and running let’s set up your domain email address.
Examples: Yourname@yourdomain.com
Support@yourdomain.com
So instead of giving people your Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail address you can give
them a more professional looking email address.
Here’s a video to show you how to set it up in your cpanel account….
Your blog is now ready to start publishing your content.
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Building Your Opt-In Email List
Writing Your First E-book to Build Your List
To get maximum exposure online and to build a mailing list you need to create
your own eBook.
You can get ideas for your eBook from feedback you get from the people that visit
your blog, this feedback will tell you what to write and will give you questions that
you can answer in your eBook.
If you think you don't know enough to write your first eBook it doesn't have to be
that long just 5-10 pages is fine as long as you get your point across and
remember you just have to be a few steps ahead of your audience.
Take a look at me for example, I don't know everything there is to know about
Internet Marketing, but I have tried things and I am a few steps ahead of people
reading this eBook.
Basically I’m passing down what I am learning and implementing and that's all you
need to write your first eBook.
To start off building your list you can use other people’s eBooks’ just like this one
but eventually you will want to write your own unique eBook.
So you see, by building a list with your own eBook people will instantly know who
you are and if you create as much value as possible they will look up to you.
Then when you send out an email to that list they are more likely to open it to see
what you have to say.
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Automate the System
So once you have finished your eBook you want to automate the system so you
can start to build your mailing list.
What I mean by this is you set up a squeeze page where you will drive traffic to
and your squeeze page is designed to persuade people to give you their name and
email address in exchange to download your eBook.
Your squeeze page should consist of bullet points telling people what they can
find in your eBook, also you need an opt-in form on your squeeze page so you can
capture your visitors name and email address.
To get an opt-in form and to automate the system you need an auto responder, I
recommend you use Aweber for this because they are the best in the business
and they have step by step instructions, tutorials and live support if you get stuck
with anything.
This is an Automated System
· You set up a squeeze page with bullet points and opt-in form.
· You drive traffic to that squeeze page (more on this later)
· When people opt-in to your mailing list, Aweber will send them an email to
confirm their subscription.
· When they confirm their subscription Aweber will send them a follow up
email (this follow up email is what you will put into the follow up feature
in your Aweber account) which will contain the link to download your
eBook.
· You can put as many emails as you like into the follow up feature and send
them out to your list on whatever day you like automatically.
Once you have this set up on autopilot you can concentrate on generating traffic
to your squeeze page.
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Sign up for an Aweber account, play around with it and look at the tutorial videos
to see how it all works.
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Driving Traffic
Here are the methods that I use to drive traffic to my sites……..
Blog Commenting
This is a very easy and effective way to drive traffic to your blog.
You simply visit blogs related to your niche and leave an informative comment
with a link back to your blog below their latest blog post.
Try and leave a comment that has great value so when people read your
comment they will click the link to your blog, this could be something simple as
adding more to the topic the blog owner is writing about.
A bad idea would be just to go around to each blog and leaving a comment like "I
agree" or "Great post" this just won't work, take your time to leave a comment
with value and you will see results.
Also try and find blogs that have a top commentator’s list on them, if you
comment enough on these blogs you will find yourself climb up the list, this is the
blog owners way of saying thank you for your commitment to their blog, this is
also a great way to get additional traffic to your blog and it's free.
Twitter
Twitter is also a very effective way you can drive traffic to your blog.
You can build a large following of targeted people who are also interested in your
niche.
So whatever niche you’re in, there will be a lot of like minded people on twitter.
It is very easy to set up your free twitter account.
· Go to Twitter and register an account.
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· Write a little about yourself in the bio section.
· Upload a picture of yourself.
· Put in a link to your blog.
· Start tweeting.
You can tweet about......
· Useful content for your niche, you could tweet about one of your blog posts
and add a link back to your blog.
· A funny video you saw on you tube and include the link to the video.
· Jokes, quotes, ask questions, answer questions.
· What you are doing now or what you'll be doing later.
· Re-tweet what other people have posted.
· Reply to tweets.
Just be you and have fun with it.
One thing you shouldn't do is consistently put links back to your blog because
people will see this as spam and they will eventually un-follow you.
The way twitter works is, you follow people related to your niche and what
usually happens is whoever you follow they will follow you back.
That's it.....That's how you can get a huge following on twitter, by simply following
people, but remember you want to follow targeted people.
To find targeted people you can visit a site called Twellow.
At Twellow you can find a list of categories where you’re sure to find people
related to your niche, also submit your own profile so people can follow you from
Twellow.
Once you have found like minded people simply follow them and follow their
followers.
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Article Marketing
When you write a post on your blog you can rewrite that post 1-3 times and
submit them to article directories.
On the bottom of each article there is what's called a resource box where you can
write a little about yourself and put in a link to your site.
You can also write articles to drive traffic to your squeeze page, just write an
informative article (300-500 words is fine) related to the content in your eBook
and put in a link back to your squeeze page in the resource box.
If you think you don't have the skills or don't have the time to write articles you
can outsource them for very little money, but it can take a bit of work to find
good writers for a low price.
Here are some popular article directories.
Ezinearticles.com
Goarticles.com
Articlecity.com
Articledashboard.com
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Press Releases
Press releases can drive tons of traffic to your sites and fast, like articles you write
a press release and submit it to press release sites.
When writing your press release you don't want to make it salesy, you need to
write it in third party as if it's news media.
You can write in the press release that you launched a blog about whatever niche
you chose and write what people can get from your blog.
You can write a separate press release for your eBook.
Whether it's your blog or your eBook you’re writing the press release for the links
to your sites will be embedded into the press release.
To find out how press releases are written go to PRweb.com and review press
releases that are related to your niche and see how other people wrote theirs or
you can outsource this if you wish.
There are lots of press release sites out there but the most popular one is
PRweb.com.
Forums
Forums sites are where people discuss or ask questions on a particular topic.
Visit forums related to your niche, have a look around them and see what people
are talking about. If you see a thread where you think you can add more to, post a
reply to that thread.
If you have a question, you can ask it in the forum by posting a new thread.
When you post a reply or post a new thread there will be links back to your sites
in your signature on the bottom of each post so if people see that your posting a
lot in the forum and your posts contain great value they will click the link to your
site to find out more of what you have to offer.
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Signing up to a forum is free and it's easy.
· Type into Google "(your niche) forums"
· When you find the right forum register a free account
· Then edit your profile
· Upload a picture of yourself
· Write a little about yourself
· Put the links for your sites in the signature
· Start posting
Video Marketing
Video marketing is probably the most powerful way to drive traffic to your site,
people nowadays love to see video to learn something rather than reading text
simply because video can get the point across a lot quicker and it can be much
easier to understand something with video.
If there is any content you have or plan to do just have a think about it and see if
you can turn that content into video.
You can register an account with YouTube and submit your videos.
Also submit your videos to TubeMogul.com this site will distribute your videos to
12 different video websites at once.
Search Engine Optimization
All of the above will see your ranking in the search engines improve and if you
keep writing good quality content on your blog it will attract more traffic
therefore stepping up your blog to a higher ranking.
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JV Giveaways
Giveaway sites is where people can go and download products for free, like your
eBook, so once you have your squeeze page set up and you have automated the
system you can submit your eBook to giveaway sites.
The way giveaway sites work is you sign up as a contributor and submit your free
gift (eBook).
Then in order for your eBook to stay on the site you need to promote the
giveaway event, you could do this by simply tweeting about it on twitter, send an
email out to your list or you could promote it on your blog.
All contributors will be driving traffic to this site, so can you imagine the amount
of traffic that could see your eBook?
If people are interested in your eBook they can click a link to your squeeze page
where they will give you their name and email address in exchange to download
your eBook.
This is a very powerful way to build your list and people can find their way to your
blog via the link contained in your eBook.
Mailing List
Once you start building your list and sending out emails to that list you can put a
link to your blog on the end of each email, so if people like what you have to offer
in your emails they can scroll down and click back to your blog.
If you use these methods to drive traffic to your blog and squeeze page and if you
be consistent with them you will see great results.
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Affiliate Marketing
This is where it gets exciting; at this stage you have put in all the hard work of
researching and getting feedback from your blog to get the necessary content to
write your first eBook.
You have set it up on autopilot and now you’re seeing people join your list
because they are interested in what you have to offer in that eBook.
Once people have joined your list and downloaded your eBook you need to
nurture that list by emailing them frequently with more informative content
otherwise they could forget about you.
Don't worry if people unsubscribe from your list chances are they were not going
to buy from you and are just interested in freebies.
You want to over deliver with your emails so that your subscribers will grow to
like and trust you, you want them to look up to you and if they have a problem or
a question you want them to go to you for help or advice.
Remember at the start of this guide I said....
"People are more likely to take out there credit card and pay you money if they
know, like and trust you".
That's exactly what you are trying to achieve here if you can build their trust you
can make money by recommending an affiliate product to them.
An affiliate product is a product created by someone else that you can promote to
your list and earn a commission on every sale you make.
When promoting an affiliate product to your list you don’t want to just promote
any kind of product just to make a quick buck.
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You should review the product to see is it of good value and helpful to your list
also you can promote a product that you have used yourself and has helped you
in a certain area.
But this is not as easy as sending your list an email saying "Check out this amazing
product, just click the link below and buy it".
There are a few things to take into account when writing your emails to send to
your list.
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Email Marketing
Email marketing is a subject I am learning at the moment of writing this eBook
and the best way I find to learn how it’s done is to look at what everyone else is
doing.
My email inbox is full of emails sent to me by successful internet marketers so I
look through these emails to see how they write them.
Here’s an example of how emails are written……
Subject line- This is written to spark curiosity and encourage people to open the
email to read more.
Opening paragraph- You want to hook people in with a story, a story that will
interest them to keep them reading and a story that is personal to you, also you
can include a link to the product you are promoting.
Body Copy- Once you have shared your short story with your list you can start
with the body of the email where you tell your readers what to do ("call to
action") with the product or service you are promoting, include link.
Soft sell- You don't want to sell the product in the email your aim is to write the
email so that people will click the link to the product then it's the sales letters job
to sell, again include link.
Footer- The footer is where you can put in your link to your blog, also at the
bottom will be an unsubscribe link.
My advice to you is sign up to mailing lists of people that are in your niche and see
how they write their emails, what kind of offers do they have and how they
promote.
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So Let’s Recap
Ø To make money online you need to build relationships with people through
helpful informative content.
Ø You need to choose a niche you are passionate about, with some
knowledge and where there is money to be made.
Ø For people to find your content and to build relationships you need to set
up a blog.
Ø Once you have your blog set up you can start to write your content.
Ø Remember to encourage your readers to comment on your blog posts.
Ø Then it's time to drive traffic to your blog.
Ø When people comment on your blog posts reply back to the comments and
start communicating with your readers.
Ø Keep blogging and keep communicating.
Ø Over time you will get a lot of feedback, this feedback will give you ideas of
what to write in your first eBook.
Ø When you have finished your eBook you can set it up on an automated
system.
Ø Then it's time to drive traffic to that system.
Ø Now you’re building a list.
Ø Then you need to nurture that list.
Ø Study email marketing by joining mailing lists of people in your niche and
review how they construct their emails.
Ø Promote affiliate products to your list that you recommend and make
money $$$
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Final Thought
I understand that there is a lot to take in, in this guide and one of the biggest
problems people face online including me is information overload.
I had tons of emails sent to me promoting all these new shiny products that
promised to help me make money online and it was just all too much.
My intention in this guide is to give you direction and to give you somewhere to
start with your own online business.
You are in the learning process now so you need to keep learning, keep asking
questions and apply as you learn.
My advice to you is to start small with your blog and when you start blogging you
will build momentum.
Start building relationships through your blog and you will grow from there.
I really hope this guide cleared up some questions you might have or at least gave
you some direction of where to go from here.
If you have any questions on anything you have read in this guide please don’t
hesitate to contact me.
You can contact me by visiting my blog and clicking on the “Contact Me” button
on the top of the page.
I would love to see you over at my blog and let me know what you thought of this
eBook. Hopefully I can visit your blog soon.
You can visit this post dedicated to this eBook and feel free to leave your
comments.
Copyright ©2010 www.NickBrosnan.com