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Nov
04
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If you are reading this, then it is a pretty sure bet that you have at least some interest in the possibility of running a home based business. But just how easy – or for that matter, difficult – is it to make money online?
I carried out a google search today for the following three search terms and I place next to each of them the number of possible websites that were returned. The figures are quite staggering.
Web Traffic……………..57,200,000
Work from Home…….32,000,000
Make Money Online..11,400,000
Now I must say that strictly speaking the search for web traffic was not precisely relevant, but I decided to include it to give some perspective to the figures.
So is it likely that each of the 32 million ”work from home” websites can be earning any significant amounts of money?
I very much doubt it.
You see the problem is that whoever is at search number 32 million in the google list of work from home websites, is very unlikely to ever get their website seen by many people….but it’s worse than that.
The person at the very bottom of the searches is actually MORE likely to be seen than someone on page ten of the searches. Why?
Well because every once in a while, some idiot (like me for example) will wade down the searches to see who is last. At the time of writing it was:-
http://freelancewrite.about.com/od/manageyourcareer/i/WAH_2.htm
So in reality, it is not perhaps surprising that the websites in the top 10 of the searches have a much better potential to make money than those that are much further down.
Most searchers never venture past page 2 at most, so being in the top 20 is critical and being on page 1 is to be desired.
This would mean (of course you already knew this) that to make money from a website, you need to drive a lot of traffic to it and work hard to get that website to the top of the searches.
But is having a website the only way to make money online?
Heck No!!! There are a myriad of ways. So let us take just the briefest look at next best alternative.
Affiliate marketing is one of the popular ways to earn money online without a website.
In essence the affiliate acts as an agent for a product and recommends people to the vendors’ website. Often the affiliate will be given a free website which is a copy of the vendors’ site or in some other way links through to the vendors’ site.
There are many marketers that earn their living this way, but it needs to be stated that just like owning your own website, if you cannot promote the product, then you will not make any money.
