Making Money Online: It All Starts With YOU. (Not Methods. Not Google. YOU.)

Making Money Online: It All Starts With YOU. (Not Methods. Not Google. YOU.)
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I have been on this forum for a while now and there is one thing that never fails.. at least a couple times every day someone posts a thread asking how to make money. Some want to make $5 per day, some have higher goals at $10 per day (that was sarcasm for those wondering) and then some want to know how to make $5,000 within 30 days to pay for some important medical procedure..

I'm not knocking small goals like $5 or $10 per day. Everyone has to start somewhere but I wanted to start a thread that talks about what it takes to actually reach your goals.

It doesn't matter if you want to make $5 per day to fuel your video game obsession or if you want to make $10,000 per month to support your family.. it all starts with YOU.

So many threads ask for methods, for secrets, for the easy way out. Unless you have the activation key for the PayPal monkey generator you will find that there aren't any magic secrets to fill your bank account with money.

I want this post to become a place where every noob can get a serious dose of reality. This same info will work for a kid in high school that wants extra money for video games and going out with friends on the weekends or for a man in his 30's that wants to start earning money online and has a family to support.


DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT EASY.

Seriously. You have to know from the start that making money online is hard in the beginning. You need a steady source of income to stay above water and to invest in your online ventures.

So, for anyone that has $0 in their bank and has bills coming up due I want to give you this real advise: GO GET A REAL JOB. Seriously, you will have so much trouble if you don't have a little nest egg to work with and have your bills covered. The majority of people fail because they jump in at the wrong time.

Making money online isn't something you try to make it in when times are bad. You are setting up yourself for failure. Trust me.. get a job with a steady paycheck and devote your time away from work to making money online.

So many people associate online money with easy money. That is so far from the truth. It's hard. Very fucking hard!

If you are serious about making money online follow these guide lines. It's just my opinion and nothing is set in stone here.. but I feel like I have been around long enough and have had enough success online to be able to give my 2 cents at least. My goal is for some noobs to see this and see what it really takes.

So many "make money online" blogs make it seem easy. Why? Because they want the noobs to sign up for their hosting affiliate offers and WP theme affiliate offers.. and buy all of their MMO affiliate products. It's such a cock fest.. all these self proclaimed gurus telling noobs they can make millions online with just a hosting account (that pays them a nice commission)..

Fuck those gurus (that are really broke muppits) and their false claims. This is the reality of making money online..


You Need Money to Make Money

The gurus will tell you that you can start making money virtually over night if you just get some traffic to your website and start ringing in affiliate sales. It's that easy, right? WRONG. Again.. they are just trying to sell you their product or get you to sign up for hosting through them. (Sadly even the most "elite" <more sarcasm> gurus come to BHW to spit their BS just to get hosting affiliate signups).

The CPA and affiliate marketing space is crowded. There are so many people trying to make money. 80% of them don't stand a chance. Who makes all the money? Those that have money to spend and invest. They are the ones that have the coin to invest in proper SEO and control the top of the PPC results. They are also spending crazy money on Facebook ads and every other traffic source that produces results. They have money to test the shit out of ads, banners, and traffic sources.

So many people will post a thread stating they have $50 to invest in PPC. Stop.. save your money. That $50 will buy you dinner for a few nights.

Understanding that you need money to make money is the first step.


You Can't Spread Yourself Too Thin

We see it all the time on the forum.. people are trying to build an authority site and monetize it with AdSense one minute then the next day they are asking about building a clickbank review website and then a few days later they want to build Instagram accounts. Enthusiasm is great and wanting to venture into many different areas is a nice goal.. but it isn't practical. And if you spread yourself too thin you are going to fail.

In the beginning you need to pick one thing to focus on and spend all your time learning everything you can about it.. whether it's building a blog and monetizing it with CPA offers and AdSense, or running CPA offers using paid traffic sources.

Find one thing that you are interested in and stick to it. Don't bounce around between several different things. You have to dedicate all of your time and focus on one project at a time, especially in the beginning.

Look at the best IMers in the game.. they are experts in one area usually. That is how they become so successful. They aren't all over the place trying to do it all. They master one thing and continue to evolve with it.


You Can't Expect Instant Results

This one kills me and it's amazing how many people expect to make money overnight or even in their first month. I blame a lot of the guru crap that is online. They want their sheep followers to think that they can make $100K a year and drive an exotic car if they just buy their $47 eBook.

If you spend some time to get to know some of the experienced members on BHW you will know that they failed more times than they succeeded. Some didn't start to make money for several months.. but they knew if they kept learning and kept moving forward they would eventually find success.

This also goes back to the first point I made about needing money to make money. In the beginning your regular job is in place to pay your bills and support your family while you learn IM. If you don't have that safety net the stress will cause you to panic and make bad choices. When you have that job and you know your bills are covered you can learn and suck in info at your own pace. Of course everyone wants to make money online ASAP but that's not how it works. You need to learn, read and figure it out at your own pace. With your bills covered you don't NEED instant results.. allowing you to figure it out at a pace that is comfortable and will allow you to actually figure it out.

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You Can't Give Up Easy

I bet if you took 5 minutes you could find a thread within the last week where someone is complaining that a particular method doesn't work. How many times have you heard...

"PPC sucks.. it doesn't work!"
"SEO is dead.. it doesn't work!"
"Affiliate marketing is dead.. it doesn't work!"
"Email marketing is dead.. it doesn't work!"

You get the picture..

Why do these people say that something doesn't work? Because they don't give it enough time. They expect instant results and quit before they figure it out. If IM was easy wouldn't everyone be working from home or working from some exotic location while models fan them down and feed them grapes?

You should be thankful it isn't easy. Who would pour you a beer at your local pub or come mow your lawn and take care of your yard? Working online and making a living online is very hard. Did I mention this yet?

Just like a professional athlete trains nonstop.. someone with goals of making money online needs to read, study, test.. nonstop. If you want it bad enough you have to put your head down and DO THE WORK.

Go into this knowing that you aren't going to quit. You will eventually figure it out if you just promise yourself that you will NEVER give up.


You Can't Put All of Your Eggs in One Basket

Once you do pick something to pursue you need to make sure you diversify as much as possible because IM is always changing and shit happens.

Let's pretend you decide to start a blog about personal finance and you have selected the following ways to monetize your website:

• AdSense - ad blocks throughout the site
• ClickBank offers - offers mixed in your blog posts and will send offers to your email list
• CPA offers - offers mixed in your blog posts and will send offers to your email list

So, you want to push as much traffic to your blog as possible with the goal of them clicking on ads, clicking on your affiliate links in the content or joining your email list through some kind of offer.

You need to find as many traffic sources as possible.. that way you aren't screwed when one dries up or just disappears..

So, a few traffic sources you would want to look into:

• SEO
• PPC
• Facebook Ads
• Guest Blogging
• Media Buys

This way if a Google update kills your traffic overnight you can just increase your other traffic sources... just turn the dial and adjust. If you put all your eggs in one basket and spent all of your time and money on SEO you would be at $0 the minute that update killed your SEO.

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You Need to be Minimalistic Starting Out (and maybe give up some luxuries)

Don't be like CEOSam and all the other fake IMers that are worried about materialistic crap. The people that get their first taste of money and go out and buy a watch or some other stupid material possession are doomed for failure. You have to stay grounded and remain focused.

This industry can do a 180 instantly and if you lose your focus you will fall on your arse fast. I'll use myself as an example.. I could have any crazy car I wanted. Not bragging.. just making a point. Instead of spending a ton of money I bought something that I had wanted since I was very young.. an a4.. it's a nice car but it's no Maserati or Veyron.. but that doesn't matter to me.

Don't set out to impress anyone. It isn't going to make you any more money. Know what you SHOULD spend your money on? A great computer, laptop, smartphone and online tools and software.. things that will help you improve your online marketing.

You need to also look at what you spend money on and look for ways to cut spending.. this allows you to use that money to help your IM career. If you eat out a few times every week (I was seriously guilty of this) cut back and cook your meals at home. More ads.. a new blog design.. more links.. etc.


You Need to Save Money

This goes back to the previous point. When you start to make money and you see it roll in DO NOT spend it. Put some away for a rainy day. If your goal is to be self employed then you need to think about the big picture.

There are no health benefits.. retirement funds.. etc. You are 100% responsible for your future. When you do start making money I suggest you hire a proper accountant and work with a financial adviser and planner.

When you are 75 years old you will be glad you put some money away instead of buying that sports car or spending your money chasing girls.

I'm not saying you shouldn't have fun.. you should have plenty of fun.. just don't live beyond your means.. and focus on saving money.

I bet if we started a thread on BHW asking people to post about experiences they had making a shit load of money and then having nothing there would be plenty of people coming forward to tell their story.

When you first taste the money it is like a drug.. have fun, but just be smart about it. Tuck some dough away and pretend you don't even have it. Invest it properly.


You Need to Treat IM Like a Real Business

This is where a lot of mistakes are made. People think they can work when they want and be successful. IM is a real business.

What would happen if you just showed up to a regular job when you wanted? You would be fired.

What would happen if you just left after a couple hours of working? You would get fired.

Yes, part of IM is the ability to work from anywhere in the world and not work as many hours. It is up to you to determine how much you work and when you work. Some deals will require more work. Heck, I know people with successful online businesses that might work 2 hours a day.. but they worked plenty of 20 hour days when they first started!

Just don't cut yourself short.. and be professional. Respond to emails quickly. Address any issues right away. Just like a real business.. because IM is a real business!


That's the end of my rant.. I hope I don't scare any of you newbies.. I seriously hope this helps some people figure this out properly. Any questions, feedback or points to contribute/add fire away. As always I hope you enjoyed the read. Until next time.. Ciao for now!

Easy $100 A Day - Perfect For Noobs

Is this still working in 2015? YES! Here's what a member has been doing recently:

NoobMoney: http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/attachment.php?attachmentid=70790&d=1443537418 - on track for $10,000 a month!

I have summarised the updated post below after removing the original post which was out of date:

The thought of starting an online business and turning it into a profitable company that provides you with both financial freedom and independence, is appealing to many. Some want to be able to be their own boss, others want to be able to spend more time with their family, and many want to be able to travel the world while they run their online business.

When I started out, I had no money to invest, so quickly had to learn how to make money from nothing. This was one of the first methods that worked for me, and I've been using it ever since as my various online businesses have grown. I started with around 100 bucks. Here's a screenshot of one of the websites I sold last year where this method had been used in part to build it up to the stage where it was largely hands off at time of sale (disclaimer: this was not an overnight success!)



A lot of people assume that they can't make money online because they don't know how to build websites or rank websites. Well, if you have always wanted to test the online marketing waters but didn't know where to start, you are in luck. This is something that can be done by someone with:

- Little to no technical knowledge (me when I started)
- No coding or SEO knowledge (me when I started)
- No experience with running a website before (me when I started)
- Around $100 in start up cash (you could invest more or less but this is what I recommend)

Often times the simplest ideas will produce the biggest returns, and this is a prime example of how you can take a simple idea and grow it into a profitable online business. No tricks, just hard work.

Here is what you need to do:

1) Identify an evergreen niche

The first thing you need to do is identify a niche, and you want to take three things into consideration when doing this. First, ask yourself if is this a niche that is very popular with a large selection of products or services that will always have a high demand. You don't want to target a niche that has a small demand or is just a fad. Think long-term potential here. Some examples of strong niches with endless opportunity include weight loss products and dating offers. People are always going to want to lose weight and people are always going to be interested in dating. There will never be a shortage of consumers actively seeking these products and services online. Pick the wider niche and not something very specific that could be short-term (e.g. such as the latest celebrity diet).

Second, you will need to make sure that your niche is one that has a lot of high paying offers. You don't want to go through all of this hard work to only make a few dollars per conversion. There are two websites that you can use to help you prospect for niche ideas and also see what offers are available, how popular they are, and finally, how much they pay.

Start with Clickbank or Amazon.

2) Build your website

- Choose a domain name (free with hosting here)

- Here is a simple guide to make your first website.

- If you do not already have hosting, my friends at MonetizePros (who provided the make a website guide) have an exclusive coupon to get a discount on hosting (yes, it's likely an affiliate link, but as it's an exclusive discount and they put the guide together it's nice to help them out!). The first year + domain works out to under 100 bucks.

- Pick a review theme for Wordpress. If you read the full post I have suggested a few in there but feel free to choose your own.

- Create 3-5 review posts. Ideally make these unique and based on real experience using the product for best results. If you're lazy just rewrite from other similar sites.

- Insert affiliate links for the products you are reviewing

3) Promote your website

There are lots of ideas in this thread but a simple way to get started is using a simple Google search (thanks to Freddyjames for the tip):

Google Search Tools (100% Free)

When I first started this method I was using Google Alerts as a semi-automated (and free) solution, but there is a more efficient method to utilize in 2015 (thanks to Gordon for the tip!). Here's how to do this with Google search alone.

Go to Google and search for your keyword. If your keyword is a phrase, put it in quotation marks.
Click on "Search Tools" under the search box.
Change "Any Time" to "Past 24 Hours"
Change "Sorted by relevance" to "Sorted by date" to get the most recent results first.

If you want to search Facebook posts, or any other site, you can also do this on Google by entering the following and changing the time and sort as above:

Searching for: "your keyword" site:facebook.com

Find relevant places that are talking about the product/niche you are in and add valuable comments. If you are adding value, link to your review posts directly.

4) Stay consistent

Popular niches will generate a lot of Google results and a lot of activity through BuzzBundle. A lot of your results are going to come from press releases, new blog posts and forum posts. Keep track of all the URL's on a daily basis -- if you are not finding at least 50 targets a day then you should consider adding some more products and searches. Whenever you receive a new alert immediately visit the URL and leave a response. Act fast, because you can potentially be the first individual to respond, which will attract more clicks.

Not all of your searches will present you with an opportunity to post, but the majority of blogs and forums will have a window of opportunity for you to leave some feedback that directs readers to your website. Now, when you are creating your posts don't just say, "Hey, visit wwwyoursite.com" because that will look like pure spam. Not only will you not receive any clicks, but the website will probably delete your post quickly assuming it is spam.

Put some thought into each reply you make, and try to customize it to directly relate to the post you are responding to. This not only helps you get a better response, but it allows you to fly under the radar of website owners and moderators. So, if you were promoting a diet pill product and responding to a question posted on a blog asking about quick ways to lose weight your reply would want to be crafted this way:

"I was in the same boat as you about six months ago. I had no idea what to believe online because everything seemed to be an advertisement. I actually read a personal review about [your product] and it seemed like the person had great success using the product so I gave it a try. I couldn't have been more excited about the results, as I am now 50 pounds lighter than when I first started using it. The article was very helpful to me -- if you want to check it out yourself you can read it here" [link to your review article]."

Remember, the more products you review, the more traffic you can generate. When you get rolling this directly translates into more sales and profit for your business.

5) Continue to build other traffic sources and you will start to rank in Google

The beauty of this method is that it doesn't rely on SEO but just by setting up a website and creating content, your review posts (and even forum threads/blog posts you've commented on) will start to rank in Google and receive organic search traffic. Not only can you rank the individual review posts, but you can also create additional posts based on long tail keywords and then direct that traffic to the specific review page. Learning SEO is just one of many ways to attract your first website visitors for free. Using Google and BuzzBundle is the easiest way to start producing highly qualified traffic as well as sales. You can then scale up by outsourcing that work and focusing on creating additional organic traffic sources through search engine optimization later on.

To conclude:

Creating a website and scaling it to a six figure per year online business is a very achievable task as long as you know the proper steps to take and don't give up. This method allows you to build a business that produces residual income and starts to produce revenue almost instantly. You don't have to wait months for expensive search engine optimization to kick in -- and you don't have to worry about Google rankings and avoiding penalties and algorithm changes. In fact, you don't have to rely on ranking in Google at all to be successful with this method!

FAQs

Q) How long until I start to make money? A) Usually within a week of consistent posting and commenting you should start seeing traffic and hopefully sales
Q) I can't afford a domain! A) It's free with hosting here
Q) How much can I make? A) Many people in this thread have been making $10-100/day. Others have scaled and some have even sold their websites (like I did).
Q) I have never made a website before, how do I do it? A) Follow this guide
Q) Which host should I use? Are there discounts? A) Try this coupon for 60% off
Q) I keep getting banned, what should I do? A) Keep trying and move onto other sites. Make sure to add value and not just spam your link with your first comment
Q) Can you mentor me? A) No, but feel free to ask questions here

Good luck!

How to Craft a Blog Post – 10 Crucial Points to Pause

It hits you like a TON of BRICKS!
It’s an idea for that KILLER blog post that is just bound to bring you all the traffic that you’ve ever dreamed of.
With the idea fresh in your mind you sit down at your keyboard and BANG it out – desperate to hit publish as quickly as you can for fear that someone else will beat you to the PUNCH!

Image by pallotron

As SMOKE rises from your keyboard you complete your post, quickly add a title to it and proudly hit PUBLISH!
Visions of an avalanche of visitors, incoming links and comments swirl before you.
But then…
Reality hits you like a SLAP in the face. There are few visitors, no comments and no links. It’s not a KILLER post – it’s DEAD.

Ever had that experience?

I have – many many times over.
Today I want to start a series of posts that will walk you through an alternative workflow for constructing a blog post – one that takes…. time.

Image by Samyra.S

If there’s one lesson that I’ve learnt about writing for the web it’s that a key element to writing successful blog posts is that in most cases they take time to CREATE.
I emphasize ‘create’ because I think too often as bloggers we ‘PUNCH’ out content as though we’re in a race or under some kind of deadline. It’s almost like we’re on a production line at times – unfortunately the posts we write often reflect this.
In this series I want to suggest an alternative approach – the crafting (or creation) of content.
This process is a more thoughtful process that is about crafting words and ideas – shaping posts into content that take readers on a journey.
To kick off this series I want to suggest 10 points to pause at when writing a post on your blog. I’ll include a link to each post that follows in this series as I update them.
Instead of rushing through a post – I find that if I pause at these key moments my post rises to a new level of quality and posts tend to get more traction with readers. They don’t guarantee the perfect post – but they certainly take you a step closer to a good one.

1. Choosing a Topic – take a little extra time defining your topic and the post will flow better and you’ll develop something that matters to readers.
2. Crafting Your Post’s Title – perhaps the most crucial part of actually getting readers to start reading your post when they see it in an RSS reader or search engine results page.
3. The Opening Line – first impressions matter. Once you’ve got someone past your post’s title your opening line draws them deeper into your post.
4. Your ‘point/s’ (making your posts matter) – a post needs to have a point. If it’s just an intriguing title and opening you’ll get people to read – but if the post doesn’t ‘matter’ to them it’ll never get traction.
5. Call to Action – driving readers to do something cements a post in their mind and helps them to apply it and helps you to make a deeper connection with them.
6. Adding Depth – before publishing your post – ask yourself how you could add depth to it and make it even more useful and memorable to readers?
7. Quality Control and Polishing of Posts – small mistakes can be barriers to engagement for some readers. Spending time fixing errors and making a post ‘look’ good can take it to the next level.
8. Timing of Publishing Your Post – timing can be everything – strategic timing of posts can ensure the right people see it at the right time.
9. Post Promotion – having hit publish – don’t just leave it to chance that your post will be read by people. Giving it a few strategic ‘nudges’ can increase the exposure it gets exponentially.
10. Conversation – often the real action happens once your post is published and being interacted with by readers and other bloggers. Taking time to dialogue can be very fruitful.

Taking extra time at each of these 10 points looks different for me in every post that I do – but I believe that every extra moment spent of these tasks pays off.
Some times the pause I take in one step will be momentary while in others it could take hours or even days to get it just right. Sometimes the above process happens quite automatically and other times I need to force myself to stop and ponder something like a title or the timing of a post.
Each of the 10 points above have much more that could be said about them so over the weeks I’ll be tackling each in turn in the hope that we can have some good discussion and sharing of ideas around them. I’ll link to each of them from within the list above as I release the posts.
For each point I hope to give some insight into how I tackle them and will share a few practical tips and examples of what I’ve done that has worked (and not worked). Don’t expect posts each day on this series – like all good things – this will take us some time!

What New (and Old) Bloggers Need to Know about SEO

In today’s episode we talk about search engine optimization, and in particular, the five mistakes bloggers make with SEO and what to do about them.

My guest today is Jim Stewart from Stewart Media. Jim has years of experience with SEO and has helped me with my SEO for ProBlogger and Digital Photography School.
He is currently helping us with SEO while we move ProBlogger to a new domain, and he is also going to be a speaker at this year’s 2016 ProBlogger event.

In This Episode

In this episode (which you can listen to above or on iTunes or Stitcher) we discuss the five SEO mistakes bloggers make, and then we move on to some reader questions from our Facebook page.
Jim adds that one thing that bloggers are getting right is creating great content. Here are the five mistakes and how to correct them:

1. Understand what Google is crawling on your site, so you can eliminate duplicate content. Type SITE:domain.com in the Google search bar to see what pages are being crawled. The number of pages being indexed should be equivalent to your number of posts. If additional pages are being indexed such as archives, tags, etc., install and configure the Yoast plugin to prevent this.
2. Setup Google Search Console (previously called Google Webmaster Tools) This will tell you everything Google sees on your site. You can use it to find and fix errors and submit sitemaps.
3. Optimize your permalink structure. You want DomainName/PostName. If you change your structure, you have to go back and 301 redirect old posts.
4. Use good post structure. The page title should be in the URL and enclosed in h1 tags. Use descriptive names in images.
5. Interlink your posts using a series of posts or sneeze pages. How to Create a Page That Propels People Deep Within Your Blog

Reader SEO Questions Answered

• What is keyword stuffing and how to avoid it?
• What is the best beginning blogger SEO tool?
• What to focus on when using Yoast?
• What numbers to measure and how to check volume in search console?
• How many keywords to target on a blog and a blog post?
• How important are onpage ranking factors, and should I bother focusing on them?
• How popularity may be replacing linking factors in search results?
• Is there value in getting links from social media?
• Should time be invested in getting links from other sites?
• If a site scrapes your content, should you issue a DMCA notice?
• What are some tips when moving from Blogger to WordPress?
• How to look for change of address settings in search console after a 301 redirect?
• What to expect time-wise when ranking a new domain?
• Why speed is such an important factor when choosing a host?

Tools and Resources Mentioned In This Post

• Yoast Plugins for SEO
• Google Search Console
• Screaming Frog SEO Tool
• Moz Tools
• SEMRush
• Google Keyword Planner
• Hosting Recommendations
• Stewart Media
• BloggersSeo.com
• ProBlogger Training Event 2016

How did you go with today’s episode?

If you have any additional SEO questions for Jim, please feel free to leave them in the comments.
Enjoy this podcast? Sign up to our ProBloggerPLUS newsletter to get notified of all new tutorials and podcasts below.

Earn $100 - $7.000/day Or more using ebook Internet Marketing !!!

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Here's How You Can Actually Make Money With YouTube

The convenience and far reach of the internet has given millions of people the ability to make a living by monetizing just about any skill, talent or opportunity. But, as is the case with any moneymaking venture, a lot of misconceptions surround certain strategies. Think: YouTube.
Related: How These Four Dads From Utah Quit Their Day Jobs to Make Millions on YouTube
Specifically, you'll consistently see that platform's name rise to the top in articles about making money from home. Yet, while you can certainly make money with YouTube, that objective is not usually achieved in the traditional manner everyone wants you to believe.
In fact, to make money from YouTube, you have to dig a little deeper and establish a more sustainable strategy.

The challenges of making money from YouTube

The YouTube myth goes like this: Post some videos, attract viewers and then cash in on revenue generated from ads. It sounds simple and effortless, so that’s the story everyone regurgitates and uses to sell get-rich-quick schemes. However, the reality is that you cannot make a healthy income based on YouTube ad revenue alone.
“Even if advertisers are paying a decent amount to promote their products through video ads, only a portion of their expenditures ever make it into content creators’ pockets,” says entrepreneur Michael Johnston. “For example, if advertisers are paying an average of $20 per 1,000 ad impressions, the videos where those ads are being shown may only generate $2 or $3 per 1,000 views.”
In other words, you’re only going to make a couple of thousand dollars for every million views. And, make no mistake about it, getting millions of views is very challenging. The good news is that YouTube ads aren’t the only revenue-generating opportunities for creative individuals willing to work hard and develop actual business plans.

Alternative solutions for generating YouTube revenue

In order to earn a healthy income from YouTube, stop viewing that platform as a monetize-able medium in and of itself. Instead, think of YouTube as the catalyst. The real way to make money from YouTube is to leverage its massive network. Here's how:

1. Sell your own goods with Shopify.

Did you know that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world behind Google? From a marketing point of view, it doesn’t make sense to ignore this massive resource. One of the best money-making opportunities is to use YouTube to sell your own physical products.
Let's assume that you already have a product to sell. You can set up an ecommerce storefront using a resource like Shopify, then produce videos that fit into your product’s niche. At the end of the videos, you can produce calculated CTAs that funnel traffic to your product landing pages.
There’s obviously a lot more to it than this, but for all intents and purposes, that’s what the conversion funnel looks like. If you have a good product and your videos are simple and engaging, this funnel will work almost every time.

2. Sell premium videos with Yondo.

If your end goal is to actually make money from videos, there’s a far better option than simply relying on your measly allocation of ad revenue. Instead, create a YouTube channel and build an audience. The primary goal is to engage this audience and build a brand name. Then, once you've established a reputation, begin driving traffic to your own landing pages where you can up-sell viewers with premium video content.
One of the best ways to do this is by using a solution like Yondo, which lets you create your own store that sells on-demand video content with your own domain. You can sell pay-per-view rentals, monthly subscriptions or anything in between. Best of all, you get to set your price and you don’t have to split revenue down the middle with YouTube.
Related: Here's Why YouTube Video Creators Are About to Make a Lot of Money 

3. Direct traffic to affiliate links.

Affiliate marketing is obviously a hugely popular online money-making opportunity. The issue is that so many affiliate marketers don’t put forth the effort it takes to actually generate a sizable income.
Instead of relying on static blogs to drive people to affiliate links, try creating a lively YouTube channel and using it as the primary catalyst. As the internet continues to move toward video as the primary form of content, you can get ahead of the curve and begin to benefit now.

4. Attract sponsorships.

If you study the most successful YouTubers, you’ll notice the sponsorships and advertisements they have in their video recordings. These deals are opportunities the video-makers have discovered on their own.
The great thing about sponsorships is that you don’t have to give YouTube a cut. Plus, you can negotiate whatever contracts you want based on impressions and the size of your audience. In most cases, the amount of revenue you generate from sponsorships is substantially more than YouTube ad revenue. (Meanwhile, you can still generate ad revenue. So it’s like having two sources of income from the same video.)

5. Transition Into live speaking engagements.

Finally, leverage your YouTube reputation and attract live speaking engagements. If the YouTube channel you produce is focused on a specific niche or audience, do some research about annual conferences or other industry events that have keynote speakers. Then, utilize your YouTube statistics and some of your best clips, to put together a package and pitch to the directors of these events.
Live speaking engagements can be very lucrative. It’s possible to generate thousands of dollars from just an hourlong presentation. So, make sure you’re seeking out these opportunities. and never disregard a chance to grow your audience.

6. Think outside the box.

Can you make real money with YouTube? Absolutely. Are you going to generate a massive income by relying on impression-based ad revenue? Probably not. Instead, you need to identify ways in which you can leverage YouTube’s network to accomplish revenue streams.

Fb ads Guide

If you want get your posts seen on Facebook, one of the most common bits of wisdom you’ll hear is this:
Pay for reach with Facebook ads. 
Paid advertising on Facebook seems to be one of the most immediate ways to impact the reach of your content. Though it’s not without its questions. How well does it work? What kind of engagement do you get?
And what can you expect for your hard-earned money?
We’ve been testing Facebook ads a bit with Buffer’s Facebook strategy, looking to see exactly what’s possible on a small budget. I’m happy to share our findings with you. Here’s what we found $5 per day will buy you on Facebook Ads.

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Looking to learn more about Facebook Ads? Check out complete guide to Facebook Ads here and learn all you need to get started. 

What $5 Per Day Will Buy You on Facebook

I’d love to jump right to our findings here, then get into the specifics below. We tried three different types of Facebook Ads, each designed with a different objective in mind.
Here are our results: 

• Page Likes – $0.57 per like
• Clicks to the Buffer for Business landing page – $4.01 per click
• Boosted post – $6.35 per additional 1,000 people reached

When we view this in terms of how much $5 per day will buy you, these are the numbers:

• Page Likes – 9 likes per day
• Clicks to the Buffer homepage – 1 per day
• Boosted post – 787 new people reached

How does this jive with your experience on Facebook Ads? 
I’ll be happy to share the specifics of what we tried and how we tried it (and how you can test this for yourself, too.)
One final thought before moving ahead, it might be useful to see how our experience compares to Facebook Ads benchmarks overall. Matthew Kammerer shared an overview of social media advertising in a guest post at the Buffer blog, including the following chart of helpful Facebook benchmarks.

Since we find ourselves in the technology space at Buffer, we can compare to the industry benchmarks in this chart.
Average clickthrough rate: 0.2%
Ours: 0.95%
Average cost per click: $0.20
Ours: $0.97
Average cost per 1,000 impressions: $0.38
Ours: $6.35
A lot of our experience here didn’t quite match up to the benchmarks, likely for a number of factors like this being my first dive into Facebook Ads (lots to learn!) and my not spending the time to truly optimize the campaigns.
Like all the experiments we run and share here, your mileage may vary. And we’d love to hear your experience and results!

How to Set Up a Facebook Ads Campaign

All of Facebook’s ad campaigns run through the Facebook Ads tool, which you can access via a direct link at facebook.com/ads, or by clicking “Manage Ads” in the drop-down menu on your Facebook account, or by clicking any of the CTAs on your Facebook page.

With Facebook, you have many different ways of approaching an ad campaign. These ways can typically fall within three categories of benefits:

• Interaction: Your ad and content right on the homepage allows users to interact with it like they do any other piece of social content.
• Reach: Expand your reach to new potential customers who can interact with your content by commenting, liking, favoriting, retweeting, etc.
• Followers: Brands also report a notable increase in followers through these social advertising options, since brand visibility increases significantly.

For small budgets, you’re likely to get the most bang for your buck with boosting reach. Moz found that $1 per day can grow you audience by 4,000 people (this didn’t quite match our experience, though it’s well worth trying).

Once you’re into the Ads manager, you can navigate with the menu on the left-hand side of the page. To get started with your first ad, click the green button in the top-right corner of the page.
When you click to create a Facebook Ad, you’ll go to a page where you choose the objective for your campaign. There are 10 options here for what you might want to achieve:

1. Boost your posts (more on this below)
2. Promote your page (more on this next)
3. Send people to your website (more on this below)
4. Increase conversions on your website
5. Get installs of your app
6. Increase engagement in your app
7. Reach people near your business
8. Raise attendance at your event
9. Get people to claim your offer
10. Get video views

I won’t get into the specifics of all these as we only tested the top three, but there are some really great resources out there—like this post from Noah Kagan—if you’re interested in learning more about Facebook Ads in their entirety.

How to Set Up a Campaign for Facebook Page Likes

1. Choose the second option from the Create an Ad list: Promote Your Page.
2. At the next screen, select the page you’d like to promote.
3. Choose who will be shown your ad.
The audience can be customized based on all the following demographics:

• Location, starting with a country, state, city, zip code, or address, and refining even further with a mile radius
• Age
• Gender
• Languages
• Interests – Facebook looks at a person’s interests, activity, the Pages they like, and closely related topics
• Behaviors – Things like purchase behavior and intent, as well as device usage
• Connections – Choose to show the ad to all people, just those connected to Buffer, or those not connected to Buffer

In addition, with the Connections setting, you can choose advanced targeting, which lets you include or exclude people who are connected to certain pages, apps, or events.

How we chose an audience for the Buffer ad

Facebook recommends narrowing your reach in a targeted way in order to maximize the impact of your ad. We went quite narrow with this experiment, choosing the following audience demographics:

• Location: United States
• Interests: Social media
• Excluded: People who already like Buffer
• Age: 18-65+
• Language: English (US)

This gave us an estimated reach of up to 3,200 people out of 14 million. The 3,200 people are how many we could expect to be online any given day and potentially see our ad.

4. Choose how much you want to spend.
5. Choose an image to create the ad.
You can pick from your library, search, or upload a new one. If you’re able to upload multiple images, you can create multiple ad variations that will run within your campaign, giving you a sort of A/B test to see what works best.
The recommended image size is 1,200 pixels wide by 444 pixels tall.
6. Write the text and the headline.
For the text, you get 90 characters to share a quick message that will appear above your image.
For the headline (which is hidden beneath an Advanced Options toggle), you can use an alternative to your page name, which is shown by default. Headlines can be 25 characters long.

How we wrote the text and headline

We left the page title the same (“Buffer”), although it’s possible we could have tried something like Buffer – Social Media or Buffer App.
For the text, we aimed for a descriptive headline that would help people understand what it is they’d be getting from us. Since we targeted people with an interest in social media, it also made sense to make the message match the audience.

The Best Tips and Tools for Sharing to Social Media

Here’s how the ad looked:

How to Set Up a Campaign for Boosted Posts

1. Choose the first option from the Create an Ad list: Boost Your Posts.
2. At the next screen, select the page you’d like to use. Then select the post you’d like to promote.
3. Choose who will be shown your ad.
You have the same options here as you did in the Page Likes campaign mentioned above.

How we chose an audience for the Buffer ad

For this experiment, we went with a quite targeted demographic: younger San Francisco people with an interest in technology.

• Location: A 50-mile radius from San Francisco
• Interests: Technology
• Excluded: People who already like Buffer
• Age: 21-40
• Language: English (US) and (UK)

This led to a great and targeted group of up to 2,800 people per day who might be served our ad.

4. Choose how much you want to spend.
5. Review your post.
In this section, you can see a preview of your post as it will appear in the News Feed on desktop and on mobile as well as in the right column of desktop screens. You can turn any of these views off so that the ad won’t be shown there.

How we chose what to display

Facebook offers some helpful views of what your ad might look like in various places. The three main spots:

1. The News Feed on desktop
2. The News Feed on mobile
3. The right column on desktop

When it came to boost this post, it seemed to us that the best placement was likely to be in the News Feed instead of the sidebar.
When the content moved to the sidebar, the headline was truncated and the description was truncated. The text itself was harder to see. Ultimately, it just wasn’t intended to be in the sidebar; it was meant for the News Feed.

How to Set Up a Campaign for Clicks to Your Website

1. Choose the third option from the Create an Ad list: Send people to your website.
2. At the next screen, type in the URL where you’d like to send traffic.
3. Choose who will be shown your ad.

How we chose an audience for the Buffer ad

For this ad, we went a slightly different route with our audience selection. We chose to target a specific audience—our MailChimp subscribers—using Facebook’s custom audiences.
To create a custom audience, we chose the option from the audience selection portion of our Facebook ad.


Here, you can choose to create the custom audience from a base of three options:

1. Customer list (like an email list, for instance)
2. Website traffic
3. App activity

We chose to use a customer list for our audience segment. We exported our subscribers from MailChimp and imported into Facebook. Our list of 39,000 names returned 23,900 Facebook users.
We then further segmented the list into specific demographics for location, age, and language. We didn’t quite feel the need to segment for interests since everyone of these folks seemed to be interested in Buffer just by subscribing!
4. Choose how much you want to spend.
5. Choose how you want the ad to look.
Depending on the visuals you’d like to associate with your ad, you can choose to either show one image with your ad or show a gallery of five images that people can scroll to view.

6. Connect your ad to a Facebook page.
This allows the ad to appear in the News Feed as if it came from a page, while the ad itself still goes to your chosen URL.
7. Write a headline.
You get 25 characters max.
8. Write description text.
You get 90 characters max.
9. Choose button text from Facebook’s list of options.

• Shop Now
• Book Now
• Learn More
• Sign Up
• Download

10. Add more text to the Advanced Settings for your link.
11. Choose where the ad will be placed.
In addition to the options above for News Feed and right column, this particular type of ad also includes an option for appearing on Facebook’s audience network, which includes third-party mobile apps.

How we chose what to display

We went with an ad for our Buffer for Business landing page, hoping to encourage any current Buffer newsletter subscribers to take a closer look at our business plan.
The ad itself, well, I’m sure I have lots of room for improvement here!

Reflecting back now, I can see that the headline lacks any information about what it is that Buffer does. There’s no benefit there for the user. The image is from PlaceIt, which does great stuff helping get screenshots and app images that look smooth.
If I were to do it again, I’d likely follow a lot of the advice here in Noah Kagan’s post about Facebook ads.

1. Headline: Give away something for free
2. Text: Social proof showing why the reader should care
3. News Feed Link Description: Give call to action for them to get benefit
For example:

Over to you

I feel like we’re quite early on with learning best practices for Facebook Ads at Buffer. I’d love to get any insight you have in this area and hear any tips you might be willing to share!
Overall, the cost of advertising on Facebook seems like it could be most helpful to us in terms of boosted posts as we were able to get more than 750 new people to check out our content for only $5.00.
What has been the best success you’ve found with Facebook Ads?