How Regular People Earn Money Online

There are some key ingredients a new online business owner must add to the mix in order to make a successful journey while trying to make money online with their website. It really does not matter if you are offering a skilled service virtually or in your local town. It also does not matter if you are selling a download-able product or one that must be processed and shipped. The biggest key ingredient to successfully make money online is to generate quality targeted traffic to your website.

Here are 4 key ingredients to making money online:

• Something to sell. It can be a service or a product.
• A platform to sell it from. You need a good website or web page.
• A buyer. No money is made until something is bought.
• Targeted traffic. You must promote your site to get found and make sales.

Let's look at this more closely.

Something to Sell

Many folks already have a product or service to sell. If they don't, there are a ton of things to sell as an affiliate where you can make money online. There are a lot of people bringing in some decent money just from selling other people's stuff.

A Platform to Sell From
Some guru's and fast talking marketers could have you thinking you don't need to do any work or have a website in order to make money online. Seriously, if it was that easy, why isn't everyone doing it? Look, it really helps to have a website or a web page from which you can sell your products or services from. Even if you are selling other people's stuff, it is in your best interest to get a decent website.

A Buyer
No money is made online unless something is bought or sold. That's a fact. You will need buyers. You have to go out and find where your ideal buyer hangs out and get your offer in front of them.

Targeted Traffic to Your Website
You must have traffic. When you find where your buyers hang out you begin to encourage them to visit your site. If your site and offer just sits in the shadows without giving people a reason to visit, you will have hard time earning money online. The field of study for driving targeted traffic to your website is called SEO or Search Engine Optimization. It is the one area that you will spend the most time and effort with. All of the other stuff of having a product, creating a website, and finding your buyers is a bit of work up front but only requires a little maintenance ongoing. Generating targeted traffic takes the most effort initially and as an ongoing activity. This is a good reason to master this one key ingredient to earning money online.

I've poured a lot of hard earned cash into all kinds of courses on Search Engine Optimization, Submission Software Programs, SEO Guidebooks, Link Building Programs, 3-way Link Systems, 1-way Link System, Keyword research tools, and the list goes on and on and on. All of them have been very good. But, none of them work at all unless you put them into action.

There are many resources available to help you create a product, establish a website, find the buyers, and drive website traffic to start making money online. It is very easy to become overwhelmed and even distracted by all of the self-proclaimed gurus out there. One thing I have found to be critical in my success is to find the most successful people online and do what they do. It takes a little time to sift through all of the junk. But, it is an excellent strategy to seek out someone that is already a master at something and learn from them.