To earn money online is like starting a business

I mentioned that I was on a mission to earn money online earlier and I’m sure some of you are curious about what I did to earn the money. As you can see, I did it mostly by blogging but it is not as simple and easy as it looks. On the surface, make money blogging may sound a breeze. A totally easy way to make a few fast bucks, you’d think. Sure, if you only intend to make a dollar or two once a week. But if you are serious about making money through the internet, you must really think it through and treat it like a real business.

This means you can’t expect to start making money without a business plan AND investment! Yes, to earn money online through blogging is a business. Just like any other business, you need some amount of investment and then you need a long term plan to keep it going and to ensure you get profits from it.

Now, based on that viewpoint, here are some of the things I did to start my make money blogging business:

1. Get my own hosting account with a reliable hosting company so I could host my blogs and register my own desired domains – this is the initial money down to set up your virtual business storefront. Whatever your blog is about, it is always more presentable and advisable to have your own domains and to host it with a reliable hosting company. Nowadays, it is very cheap to get hosting accounts as most are less than $10 a month.

2. Set up my Google adsense account, sign up as affiliates for some programs such as Amazon or Ebay and other income-earning programs: Google adsense income is probably one of the easiest income you can get although it is not easy to get clickthroughs to earn enough. So, you should always team it up with affiliate marketing and even advertising programs like infolinks, Chitika or even the local Nuffnang program.

3. SEO my blogs – I know many make money blogging gurus are pooh-poohing about SEO and how it does not really help. Well, to me, I find that it really does help to get my sites ranked and also to get more organic traffic. The main rule is not to overdo it. Just don’t write blog posts choke full of SEO-ed keywords, your site may just get banned by the G-God as a spam site!

4. Set a goal – it is one of the first things I had when I started blogging more earnestly. Before I was blogging seriously, I actually had two other blogs which I started in Blogger several years back. Those blogs were merely for fun and I hardly keep it updated. It was not until last year that I set a real goal on where I want to head with my blogging and online business. With a goal, at least I know I am working towards somewhere instead of blindly moving along.

5. Be prepared to invest some money – I mentioned the initial money you need to put down for the hosting and domain earlier but now I am talking about more money in trusted programs that will help you to achieve your goal. Just don’t fall into some easy money scam. There’s no such thing as free and easy money so you can easily forget about that. What I meant are programs like article distribution sites and link building sites like the Unique Article Wizard and Connect Content which will drive more traffic and links to your site before you could say linking. Or even products like the 7 dollar script. Things that could enhance your blog or bring you money in future. Remember to do your research first and check around to ensure it is not a scam first.

6. Quality content – okay, so not exactly GOOD quality type of quality (from the looks of this blog which is full of loads of crap ) but good enough content to not look like a purely SEO site meant to earn you some income. Remember, you don’t want to anger the G-God so your site needs to be authentic and to be authentic, you need to fill it with authentic and real blog posts. So, if your main theme is about ‘how to get rid of your annoying in-laws’, then you should post up posts about..err…well, ways on how to get rid of your annoying in-laws. heheh. But if your blog is like mine, full of all sorts of crap, then it is still alright. Just remember to make sure that it makes sense and real humans can understand reading it.

7. Be patient and keep at it for the long term – to earn money online through blogging does not take a mere few days. Heck, it does not even take a few months. Sometimes, it takes up to a year or more. Just like any normal business, you don’t make a profit immediately. You need your site to age and that means it takes time for Google to rank it and for your site to be indexed.

8. Build links and market your blog like crazy – There is no point blogging and waiting for people to come to your site. It will NEVER happen if you don’t tell the world that your site is up! Just like opening a shop, how would people know it is there if you don’t do a spot of marketing and advertising? To market your site, you can choose to trade links with other bloggers, create links through article sites, ping sites like PPS, do a spot of blog hopping and meet new friends, join online forums, etc. There are many ways to tell people about your site so just go ahead and do it. Don’t wait!

9. You will not become rich instantly – seriously, there are millions of bloggers out there so what makes you think you will become like a certain Mr Chow and start earning big bucks in a few months’ time? Like I said, there’s no fast and easy money to make online or anywhere else in this world. Just like any other business, you need to put in the amount of work first before you see any fruits.

10. Lastly, have fun! – Really, don’t start blogging if you absolutely hate it. You can’t sell something you don’t like. So, if you are not having fun blogging, you will definitely not make it at all because before long, you’d lose the motivation and then your blog will die within a few month’s time.

That’s my 10 tips to earn money online the Foong way BUT lemme say I am no expert or pro-blogger and these tips are just based on my experience so far.

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