One of the easiest ways to get more sales is to build a relationship with your customers. This is a very cost effective method to increase the number of customers that convert into paying customers. If you are not collecting email addresses on your web site then you are missing out on a huge number of potential sales. There are many easy to use services to set up a pop form that asks visitors to your site for their email address. Once you have collected email address it’s time to build a relationship with the users subscribed to your newsletter. No hard sell you are building trust and providing the customer with useful information. This is why using an automated service works best for this type of marketing. You can set you first few messages to welcome the user and provide useful information. Once you have created trust then you can start to slip in a few related sales pitches. It would work best if you use soft sale skills to build interest in what you are promoting. Some of the top affiliates online use this method to make a huge amount of money each month. It takes a little practice to plan the perfect marketing campaign by email, but it can be well worth the effort. If you want to learn how it’s done then enter your email the next time you land on a page that offers a newsletter. Watch as messages arrive in your inbox with customer relationship building messages. Start to count how many messages are sent before you get a sales pitch. If you signed up to a good marketer then you will see how this system works and why so many are making money this way. The nice thing about building a list is that you will have an audience that trusts your opinion, and will take action to offers that are targeted to them. The set up for email capture is not that difficult if you understand a little HTML. You will need to place a small bit of code on your web site or blog to make the email capture form work. If you have trouble setting it up the company that you use for email marketing can install the code for you at an additional cost. It is well worth the trouble and effort to start building an email list and you will be wondering why you had not done this sooner when the money starts pouring in.

If I had not sold some of my stock portfolio last year I would be a richer man today. With so many projects on the go I need a little funding and I decided to sell my stocks. This was a mistake because had I held the stocks for another year they all doubled in value. The actual value of the stocks sold would have been much more then the profit I made on the project I was working on.

As an entrepreneur I took a chance on an idea and it failed. That is the cost of doing business sometimes you lose money, but you also walk away with a valuable lesson. As I rebuild my stock portfolio I am going to diversify into a portfolio of five stocks. The risk will be spread and the chances for growth in my favour. As I watch the portfolio grow in value I will not be tempted to sell. If I need the money I will pretend that the stock portfolio does not exist. Only with total commitment to my stocks will I see them grow in value. There will be stocks in the portfolio that I will sell when I have a chance at profit, but I will use the profit to invest in more stock. If I follow this method I should grow my portfolio and over time build wealth. The other factor I use when I buy stocks is to make sure the company pays a dividend. While my stocks wait to grow in value I might as well have some passive income to reinvest and keep growing. An education on stocks is also a must as I build my portfolio I am also trying to learn as much as possible.

Every little tip helps and by reading and watching business shows I will find the right mix to invest my hard earned cash. There are not too many methods that can make you truly rich, but the stock market played the right way can build wealth with time. It worth having some money invested in stocks and to be balanced have an equal amount in cash for those emergencies that life throws once in awhile. The lesson learned from my mistake last year was not to use my investment income for other purposes. Had I just kept the stock it would have worked out much better for me.

At the start of the year I kind of let my affiliate marketing efforts slip. With my Google Adwords ban and just not having the right offers caused a drop in income. The top offers that I was promoting thorough my landing pages were no longer available on the networks. As I had a good history with those types of offers it was difficult to re-tune the same style for different efforts. As I slipped further and further away from the goal I had set for myself I focused on my other income sources. With the affiliate industry changing so much in the last few months it is now time to get back on track and create winning campaigns.  There are many offers out there that can be profitable and with a little fine-tuning can kick start my road to recovery in affiliate marketing. The first step is to sort out the campaigns offered through my affiliate networks. Once I have a campaign I would like to work with I need to create the landing page. This is the most crucial step as the landing page is going to drive customers to the offers. On average I can spend a week on creating a winning landing page. Once I am happy with the landing page I start to look for traffic sources that would complement my landing page and the audience I am trying to reach. There are many different traffic sources to pick from and experience will tell you which ones will have the best response rate for your offer. If this last step goes well then my campaign will start to have some response. If the response is low I can play around with the landing page or try a different traffic source. There are many ways to get your campaign profitable and each affiliate marketer will have different methods that they use. The steps I take I have proven to work for the type of affiliate marketing that I do, but others might want to try something different.  The effort you put into your landing pages is key to making money, and I stress that testing is the best way to get the landing page to work.  Now that I can focus on my affiliate marketing business again I will document my next profitable campaign for a future post.

If you sell online then you know that using Paypal can be expensive. The fee’s you pay to Paypal can cut into your profit margin. The other negative thing about Paypal is getting your account frozen. If you sell a lot online then you need a back up payment system. The alternative that I am using on one of my sites is called Alert Pay. This company is located in Canada and getting an account set up is quick and easy. If you want to accept credit cards on your site then you are going to need to get manually approved by Alert Pay. Other then the credit card set up time for the site everything else works like Paypal. Your customers can use the buy now button to make payment or you can request money by email.

The challenge is to get customers to trust this payment method. Many people have not heard of Alert Pay and might not bother to create and account when they check out of your store. You need to clearly mention on your site that you use Alert Pay and that they are 100% secure method of payment. Once the customer pays for the item the money shows up in your account. If you have a new account there might be a hold for about 10 businesses days. As I write this I have just completed the first part of the verification process and should have full control of the account in the next week. With so many shady things happening online Alert Pay wants to make sure that they know whom they are dealing with. As I change all my payment links on my site to Alert Pay I will have to send some traffic over to my site.

Once I have enough traffic I can compare the conversion against Paypal. It might take a few changes to the page to get back the normal level of conversion, but that is part of making money online. If I have to rate Alert Pay in this review I would give them an A+ for effort. The Alert Pay site is a gem to work with and getting the buttons on my site was not more effort then with Paypal. Overall I am very happy with this alternative to Paypal and hope to use them for more online payment processing on new sites I am working on. If you want to try Alert Pay it’s free to create an account and you can fund your account as easily as with Paypal.

Click Here for Alert Pay Free Account Setup!

Help for those who have an online home based business! Step by step guide to how the internet works gets your business to the next level. My friend Mack Michaels has a very cool web site that can help people learn about different ways to make money online. With this system you are shown an easy to use system that is fully automated. Once you get it going that’s it no more effort on your part. You can make money 24 hours a day and it’s all explained on Mack’s web  site. You should click through to watch the videos to Financial Freedom and then you can make a decision if this system is for you.

If you are looking for different ideas to make money online do take a look at this site. With over 100 video tutorials, step by step guide, club of over 12000 members.

This week I took a little road trip to New York and while I was away I made money. The idea that I can make money while I am on holidays is an idea that some people can not understand. When I mention this to friends or family they do not understand that what I do runs 24 hours a day and for most part unattended. If you work for a living for someone else and go on holidays you will not get paid until your return or in some cases you have vacation pay for a certain amount of time, but if you fail to return in that time period you will not get paid. If I wanted to stay longer in New York I could and I would still make money.

This blog is about teaching people how to make money. When I mention affiliate marketing and joining a network like Market Leverage I do so to help people make money. It’s funny how many people want to be able to go on holidays and still have a source of income, but fail to take any steps.

This got me thinking that if I did not follow advice I found online many years ago I would not have this online income.

Over the years I read and researched many ideas for an online business. There were some ideas that failed and others that were great successes. If I did not take a chance and try things out I would have failed at making money online. What I hope people will learn from this post is to take a chance develop an idea.

You can make money online and trust me there are many dollars waiting for you, but you need to take action.

Break down of where I made money while on holidays:
Affiliate Marketing
eBay
My own site that I sell products direct
Google AdSense

These four simple steps allowed me to have a great time in New York City. If you want to earn money online these are very simple businesses that you can start will very little up front cost.

If you do not sell on eBay or tried before and quite try selling on eBay some of the stuff you do not want any more.

Build content web sites with Google AdSense and a mix of affiliate offers. These are all proven money makers that allow many people to earn a decent income online.

Now next time you are planning a trip are you going to have a business in place that will allow you to make money online.

When I get a chance I will do a little mini New York City post and the money making ideas that came to mind as I went around different areas of the city.

The classified web site Backpage is very similar to Craigslist. The Backpages web site has been around for less time and has a smaller community. This is not to say that you can not make money with Backpage. The good thing is that there are also less flag reporters. If you have listed on Craigslist you know how annoying it can be to have your ad flagged even tough there is nothing wrong with what you have listed.

If you live in the US then there is a Backpage for almost every major city. The site has also gained a following and is growing in the US market. As for marketers in other parts of the world you will find a very small following as many people are still not aware of this site. As a Canadian I find that Backpage has not gained too many users over the border. At this point it looks like a great site for US users who have something to sell online.

The difference between Backpage and Craigslist is that you have the option of listing for free or adding extra feature to make your listing stand out. You can also pay to have your listing show up in printed newspapers in some areas.

I found Backpage very easy to use and setting up a classified was just like doing it on Craigslist. If you do not need any extra features then this free classified site does a great job. As more people find out about Backpage the community will grow. Those looking for bargains might want to check out Backpages as you have less people competing to buy an item. You have a better chance to buy an item at a barging price.

If want to make money online then Backpage is a good place to offer some affiliate products or to list your old stuff. You need to try Backpages and get familiar with all the options.

Link to Backpages.com

If you have not heard of Justin Blake he is an online marketer. With Justin’s new online business kit there is now a simple way to make money online. As an entrepreneur Justin is looking for other like minded people to take part in a new moneymaking marketing test. You will get instant access to Justin’s proven system and tools.

If you want to try a new system for making money online try Justin Blake’s new online business kit.

All it takes is a simple email submit to gain access to his site.

Learn More At Justin Blake’s Online Business Kit Site!

This is the best time of the year to make money online with Craigslist and kijiji. Many people will be getting unwanted Christmas gifts and will be too lazy to return them or will lose the sales receipt.

This is your chance to score brand new items at low prices. The trick to this make money online tip is to buy low and sell for a profit back to the same marketplace or try eBay or Amazon. The idea is to find as many items as you can to resell for a profit. In your search you might also end up finding items that you want to keep. Last year I scored big with Craigslist. In my area there were many unopened items being offered.

If you check your local listings and those of cities near by you are bound to find something of interest. In the past a few friends I shared this tip with ended up making enough money to fly out to Las Vegas and have a great time.

Start looking at Craigslist around the December 26^th until the end of January. This is the prime time to score some great deals.

Here is another drop shipping company for those who sell or want to sell on eBay. The great thing about using a drop shipping company is that you do not have to carry any inventory. This makes it very simple for you to start an online business and have very few costs.

The drop shipping company handles all order processing and shipping. All you need to do is list your products for sale on eBay or Amazon and watch the sales add up. Once you get a sale on eBay or Amazon you log in to your drop shipping account and fill out the order details and make payment for the goods being shipped. In a few days your customer gets a brand new item in the mail and you pocket the profits.

Very little work and great potential. Many people have found out that drop shipping is the best way to go for quick easy money online. With thousands of products to sell you never run out of goods.

You can even set a free ecommerce site and sell direct to customers.  If you have never tried a drop shipping company take this FREE trial and find out for yourself the large amount of products available to sell. It’s very quick to set up and account and you can start making money right away. Take a look at this site for yourself and decide if making money online with drop shipping is for you.

Learn more about drop shipping here!