The search term “How To Make Money Online” has a huge search volume. I guess the reason is simple, e-commerce is gaining huge traction, online adoption is prevalent and technology is enabling people to easily try out online presence to “sell something”.

And while you are googling, you may come across many websites and internet marketing gurus touting huge successes from doing internet marketing and perhaps “selling” you their secret blueprint and programs.

There are definitely many true success stories to tell.

What I want to caution against is the get-rich-quick promises, promises that you only have to follow a proven formula and very soon you will be enjoying life at the beach, with passive income coming from your online venture working 24 x 7, 365 days for you.

The starting point for any business (be it offline or online) is the same. You have a product or service, there is a market demand for it (be it a want or need) and you try to create awareness and establish your branding such that people do business with you.

Making money online you need to know the marketing techniques though. You can refer to the Essential Guides, a few skill sets like website design, SEO, social media marketing, email marketing etc are required.

It begins with identifying the niche market you are going after in a 5-step process.

Market research research refers to understanding the niche target segment, who are the customers, their demographics, how big is the market, the keyword research etc. This is a crucial step and sometimes at this stage, you may decide to abandon the project.

You then need to plan your website or sometimes all it takes is a good Facebook page, or a YouTube channel or an Instagram account,  though a website is usually a necessary element.

Next you design your marketing plans, in terms of paid ads, blog articles to build subject matter authority, SEO to generate organic traffic, develop Facebook page followers, email marketing to build up a good database etc etc. Not all have to be done, while there should be emphasis on some as your business develops.

Finally, in order that internet marketing income is more like passive income, you should automate your sales funnel and activities. For example, email campaigns can be set up once and be put on auto-pilot (read How To Do Email Marketing).

I should emphasize that the most important step is identifying your niche market. As you take some time building up your online business, hopefully the product or service you are promoting is an area you are familiar with or a hobby or interest area you are passionate about. I have an article Affiliate Marketing Niche Ideas you can further refer to.

You may encounter obstacles along the way, but have the perseverance to do one niche well and as you build up your customer database, you may target the same base for similar or related products and services.

I wish you luck in this exciting venture.

Anspire Consulting provides various digital marketing services and for specific courses you may be interested, please contact us.