Let me start off  by killing a myth, you cannot get rich from online marketing over night! There you have it, on black and white. Regardless of what other tries to tell you! If you are looking for an instant wealth or get rich quick guide, you’ll be disappointed, and I recommend you to stop reading now!

Still here, great! Then I can tell you that it is not that hard to build up a steady long term income from online marketing, but it takes a lot of time, energy and for you to be creative. It will also be a real challenge. In this article I will cover some basics topics on how to start building and making money from your website. If you look around How To Make Links you’ll find more detailed info about the topics covered here.

Affiliate programs

An affiliate program is the company that lets you use their ads on your site. Then you’ll get paid, after how much the ads are clicked on, how many leads they generate etc.

Now days, many of the affiliate programs analyze your site’s content and makes sure that you display correct ads, targeted to your site’s unique content. This saves you a lot of time, since you don’t have to go out and find the right affiliate program for your site. Let’s take an example, you have a content site about motorcycles. Then all you has to do is to place the code, giving to you by the affiliate program, in a good place on your site. Then the affiliate program’s software will analyze your site and serve your site with relevant ads. Since the ads that will come up on your site, will be highly targeted to motorcycle, the chances that your surfers will click, is very high.

So the only thing, you need to do is to build relevant sites around your favorite topic. Doesn’t sounds that hard, does it? Let me tell you, it’s not, but again, it takes sometime and learning!

What Site To Start With

The best way to start building a site is to select a topic that you have some deeper knowledge about, or is very interested in. The reason for that is simply, it’s much easier to write about something that interests you. It would be hard for you and the result would be poor, if you decide to build a site around car details, and you doesn’t have a clue on how cars works or are built. Also, it would be difficult to do the research for it and find the right ideas to put it all together into a functional website. Since your lack of knowledge and enthusiasm for the subject is low, so will the quality of your website be. Your visitors will leave your site, quick, if your content doesn’t fit their expectations. Remember, without visitors, it’s hard to get someone to click on your ads!
So, the basic tip is to stick with subjects that you know and are interested in and go from there.

How big must my site be?

The simple answer for that question is simply, as big as your subject or ideas demand it to be. Of course, the type of site you are building also does matter. Generally, to have some sort of body to your site, around 5-12 pages, filled with unique content, is a good way to start.

Content is king!

Nothing is more true than that statement, unique content is everything, don’t forget that. So make sure that your content is fresh, unique and with a personal touch to it.
Don’t fall in the trap of putting up free content on your site! It’s easy to find free content, that you can use on your site, on almost any subject. The problem is, by doing that your site is not unique any more! The visitors and search engines, will simply not find it attractive, since they already seen it a 1000’s times before. By doing that, your site will be penalized by the search engines, which means that you will be buried deep down in the search results, making it hard for someone to find it. Also, the ones that does finds it, will just leave quickly, since they cannot find anything new. As you remembered, no visitors equals with no clicks!

My best tip is to use fresh unique content that you have created yourself or bought exclusive for your site. That way you will get the love from the search engines and your visitors, plus your site will stick out from the rest, which will lead to more clicks on your ads. Don’t you ever, ever touch free content, however tempting it might be!

Must I be a SEO guru to make money?

SEO, short for search engine optimizing, is the practice of adapting your web pages so that a search engine robot can understand them and rank them accordingly. Now, if we knew for sure, how the search engines and their ranking worked, things would be a walk in the park. Now, of course, the way search engines works and ranks sites are a very well kept secret. So, what we can do is speculating and learn from our own experiences. Remember that, when you read SEO info on various forums, that none knows for sure, how the search engines really works.

Also, stay as far away as you can from sites claiming that they can get your site in the top position on Google etc. No one, besides the search engine itself, could ever guarantee a top position in their results. If you know exactly how Google worked, would you sell out that info or would you keep the info yourself, laughing all the way to the bank? Think about that, the next time someone claims they can fix your site a top position in a big search engine!

One page, however that will give you some great information on how to set up your site is,

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769

That is Google’s webmaster guidelines, read and understand what they have to say!

If you stick to the information that search engines gives you, use your own judgment when getting information from SEO forums and work your way up from there, you’ll do just fine. However, you must give it time, don’t expect to get a top position for your site after just a few months! Some search engines may +6 months, before they have found your site and included it.

The most common error webmasters do, is to jump the gun. When their patience runs out, they start changing things and most likely that will make the indexing process, taking even longer.

So, remember this, stick to proven and safe SEO techniques, read as much as you can about SEO (but use your own judgment) and finally give the search engines sometime to include your site in their index.

How Do I Design My Site?

I prefer simple sites with a designed that focus on the content, and is not cluttered with graphics, animations and  eye catching flash objects. If you think that some bells and whistles would add something useful to your site, sure add it. However mostly it’s a complete waste of time. Also, a search engine robot cannot understand what a picture or an animation is all about. A search robot can only process text, so make sure you have a lot of it, on your site. However, try to spice it up with some images so that the text blocks doesn’t appear to be so heavy.

When you decide the layout of your site, try to think as your visitors. Have a clear and simple navigation system for your site. There is nothing more frustrating than to visit a site and having a hard time finding what you are looking for. Don’t you agree?

Also, there is several free template sites that offers you to use their templates in anyway that you see fit, while you provide a link back to them. When I build a site, I often use templates, as a ground, I then change the template around, so that it will stand out and fit my needs. Nevertheless, to do that, you must have some basic skills in HTML and CSS, so by a book or take some online tutorials on the subject.

However, it has been proven, that retro simple designs that focus on your content, is the way to go in 9 times out of 10, so stick to that!

At last, hopefully, after reading this page you have gotten some inspiration to building your own website and start your journey into the world of online marketing. You can look around How To Build Links, for some more in depth articles on how to succeed online.  Just remember, it doesn’t happen over night, but if you do it right, it will pay off, big time!