Since I earn part of my income online, I require an easy and reliable way to ensure that there will be money coming in every month.  Sure I dabble in Adsense and sell private ads, but that has only brought me part of the way of where I need to be.  To supplement my income I diversify as much as I can and nurture each income stream until they are producing a reasonable profit.  What is considered a reasonable profit you ask? . First off its getting more out of it than what you put in, this means for every hour I spend working on a project, I expect to get paid at least for the time spent.  In most cases this realized profit does not happen immediately, instead my financial rewards come months later or within a year.  Sounds like a long to wait doesn’t it?  Once you have enough projects under your belt that are making money, your income will be perpetual and this post is dedicated to showing you how to do it.

In order to build an income online its going to take some serious work on your part.  If you believe making money online is easy and that anyone can do it, then you are in a fantasy land.  Now that we got that out of the way we can begin.  Making money online begins with a self assessment, determining which skills you have.  I’ve put a list of things that I consider to be very valuable for those looking to make money online.

Which Skills Do You Have?

• Web Design
• Graphic Design
• Programming
• Writing

Which Traits Do You Have?

• Resoucefulness
• Intelligence
• Hard Working
• Willing To Learn
• Relentlessness

Yes, these things appear to be generic but they are essential to get the job done.  So you think you have the majority of these things or perhaps you have them all, does that mean you are going to make money?  Hell no, that’s just the beginning, you also need to have reliable knowledge to apply these things to.  Without reliable knowledge, you will be like the vast majority of wannabe online income earners. 

Reliable Knowledge Is Essential

Let’s talk about what constitutes reliable knowledge for a few moments so we are all on the same page.  “Reliable Knowledge” refers to knowing the information that you are using to get to where you want to be is absolutely sound and solid.  I bring the topic up about “Reliable Knowledge” because there is so much misinformation on the Internet that it has created a laberynth of dead ends for the majority who try to make an income online.  Imagine that, there are hundreds of thousands of people who want to make money online and the majority are going about it blindly while those in the ”know” just sit back and rake in the cash.  The message here is don’t put your time, effort and skills into anything online unless you know it will work.

So how do we distinguish what is reliable knowledge and what is not?  Yes, that’s the million dollar question…I like to think that the successful folks develop a sixth sense for it.  Picture someone wakes up and says, hey making money online sounds like a great way to make a living….and so their journey begins.  They start visiting money making forums and blogs to find out the most lucrative ways as they start to build their arsenal of tactics.  They do extensive “make money online” searches in their favourite search engine and take notes diligently.  Then finally they put together a game plan and start executing what they think is the way to make money.

Global Domination Shortfall

Their Adsense pennies start to flow in and they are overjoyed as they continue their quest for complete global domination.  Several months later they take a step back and look at all the work they have done and say “gee, I’ve barely made enough to fill my car up with gas, what am I doing wrong?” At this point they feel wiser and more focused and change their strategy only to end up in the same place time and time again.  By this time, they believe making money online is either a myth or requires magical powers that only “John Chow” and a few other extremely blessed individuals have.  Unfortunitely for these people, they have wasted a large amount of time and resources using an uncomplete plan that lacked reliable knowledge.

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Ok, all that sounds depressing and by now you think I’m an asshole for painting such a truthful picture of the majority of people who try to make money online, possibly even including yourself.  Let’s change things up and talk about how I am making money to brighen things up a little.

How I Make Money

I make money online by providing something original to world, including this hybrid blog that features product, service and website reviews.  Is getmorereviews.com the most original concept ever to hit the Internet, well not exactly, but since I believe in it and its making money….I think I will stick with it for now.  So this website is just one of many that I have that are currently making money.  How does it make money you ask?  It makes money because of monetization and content synergy.  What are these big words that I speak of?  Monetization refers to how I make this website make money and content synergy refers to how everything I write here complements everything else on the website. Let’s take a closer look at the details so you understand and recognize the true diabolical nature of how I do business online.

For every article I write on this website, I already know its going to attract readers because of the content.  Review websites tend to bring in new and repeat traffic, I know because I check my stats regularily.  Did I know this before starting this website, not really, but I went with my hunch.  OK, so I’ve chosen a website content theme that gravitates well with the masses and apparently search engines adore, so I’m off to a good start.  Secondly, I ensured that this website is well monetized by adding in those pesky Adsense ads.  Every page of this website displays ads in a tasteful, unobstructed way as to not overshadow the content.  Since I get new and repeat visitors here daily, even if I did nothing else, this website would more than pay for itself through my Adsense ads which by the way…are clicked on by most visitors who come here.  I’m not sure why my clickthrough is so high, I guess Google is really doing their job with these ads for content because they appear to be irrestible to visitors, they just keep clicking, clicking clicking.  All those clicks put money in my account which encourages me to keep writing. 

Paid Product, Service and Website Reviews

The second income stream here is paid reviews.  People who have a product, service or website that want additional exposure for visit this website, they click on my Get Reviewed page, then they contact me to do a paid review for them. My prices vary for reviews, depending on the length, etc. My clients who choose to purchase a review get additional exposure and increased sales, I get paid and everyone is happy.  Now that’s a fine piece of work if I do say so myself.  The third income stream here involves affiliate programs, basically I write reviews about products that I like (but not until I’ve joined their affiliate program).  Once again, folks looking to learn more about a product or service that I have written about visit my review article then click the affiliate link and make a purchase.  I get my cut of 20% or more of the purchase price, customer gets their product and everyone is happy once again.

Don’t Forget To Read: Top 50 Article Directories Revealed  |  Bloggers Don’t Quit Your Day Job 

So I’ve just shared how I have 3 distinct methods of making money off of this website that are as clear as day.  Each one is reliable, profitable and completely do-able.  As you can see, my methods are well thought out and are competely above board. Take my knowledge and use it for yourself if you feel inspired to do so….But remember, the teacher doesn’t tell everything….

Learning the who, what, where, why and how of blogging is a pretty big task if you dig as deep as I do.  Frankly, until 6 months ago I didn’t even really know what a blog was.  What I did know is that they were creating a buzz and those who knew how to make it to the top were making tons of cash if they knew how to monetize their blog.While many would be bloggers have done the same as I have, what separates the bloggers who are making money from those who aren’t still boils down to how much homework you did.  I studied the blog model for approximately 20 hours a week for 6 months before I really knew what was going on.  Sounds rediculus to some that I would spend that amount of time over a 6 month period, but the fact of it is I’ve still only scratched the surface.  My theory is learn as much as you can, put a plan together that utilizes the most valuable information and be persistant.  Those are my core key factors for almost every project I take on.  By breaking down your way of getting things done will provide you a solid blue-print to use over and over again.

Researching blogs took me so long mainly because there is alot of inaccurate information floating around.  For ever 1 truth I learned, I had to comb through 10 half-truths or lies.  How do you find out what is true and what’s not?  After enough time spent analyzing successful blogs, you develop a 6th sense for credibility. Every blog you visit, you should ask yourself a handful of questions to understand the motivation behind it.  I’ve put a quick list of things I instinctually ask myself while visiting any blog.

• Is this a money driven blog or a hobby blog?
• How much traffic is this blog receiving?
• How much time and effort went into this blog?
• Is this blog up-to-date?
• What level of professionalism is used on this blog?
• Is this blog SEO optimized, and to what level?
• What marketing methods does this blog use?
• How much money is this blog making?
• How much money could this blog be making?
• Where is the blogger is located?
• Does this blog belong to a blog network?
• Does this blogger have other blogs?
• What platform (wordpress, etc.) is being used?
• Text to graphics ratio?
• Keyword density?
• How is the blog monetized?
• How much is advertising on this blog?
• How many outbound links per page average?
• Does this blog have multiple authors?
• How original is this blog?
• Does this blog use original content?
• Do I feel compelled to return to this blog?
• What are the core topics?
• How wide is the niche for this blog?
• Does this blogger have other online businesses?
• Who are the linking partners?
• Does the domain name match the theme of the blog?
• Are there any errors on the page?
• What is the color scheme of the blog?
• Page loadtime?

And the list goes on, to understand where a blog stands on the Internet stage, all of these questions are relevant.  I left many other factors I analyse off the list because they are very advanced and will be saved to publish in another post.  Nonetheless, if you learn to analyse the factors in this list in a blink of an eye every time you visit someones blog, you will soon start to understand where they stand.

Knowing who you are in a crowd with makes it much easier to know how to stand out.  If everyone is wearing “red” and you want to stand out, then perhaps you should consider wearing “blue”.  This simple example illustrates the concept of being distinguished, an absolute must if you are going to succeed.  The bigger the crowd, the more creative you need to be in order to stand out. 

So what’s unique about GetMoreReviews?  It looks like many other blogs or news post sites out there and does not appear to offer anything substantially unique on the surface.  Sure it looks organized, professional and well monetized, but does it actually make money?  Sure it makes money, in fact profits are growing everyday.  It makes money because every aspect of GetMoreReviews is geared to drive profit.

First off, the concept of GetMoreReviews is to provide an additional resource to folks browsing the Internet looking for more information about a product or service that they were considering buying.  Typically, users will head to the major review sites to get the “review benchmark”, which is essentially a review that they will compare to all others they read. 

Secondly, once they read a few high profile reviews, they will continue to search for another authoritive opinion.  That’s where I come in, by providing a fresh look at the product.  Once they read my review, they are further prepared to make the purchase.  A few strategically placed price comparison charts and embedded affiliate link to each each vendor who carries the product or service and you can soon see how GetMoreReviews makes money. 

If the reader is not prepared to buy, perhaps they will stay and read other product reviews here or click one of my ads.  This is often the case, thanks to Google Adsense.  In any case, I’m making money!  While this whole process seems straight forward, it does have its pitfalls, but continues to work great for me.

The main lesson here is that GetMoreReviews is not really a blog at all, although it uses a blog platform.  I’ve taken some of the virtues of blogging and combined them with affiliate marketing.  This hybrid approach is what makes this website unique and effective. 

I will continue to pepper this site with insightful articles like this one amongst the reviews I will publish here.  This will attract bloggers who really want to know how to make money online and regular folks looking for more information on products and services.  A happy and profitable co-existance.