I am a problogger. There are millions of us out there, but only few make money to write home about.  My approach is I focus on creating my own product. I write software for languages. I combined by passion for foreign languages with programming. My websites and the money made off of that will be effect of this, rather than the primary purpose. This is my personal experience with making money off my website.

My biggest piece of advice on how to learn to make money online – is be patient and do nothing spammy. Make it all professional and personal at the same time. I initially drive income though ads until my products are complete.

The theory of making money online – The idea behind a website is a low-cost shop. You do not need physical assets and structures to support your inventory sales. Further, your reach will be the entire world as opposed to a geographical location. The whole ideas is to get organic natural search traffic.  Then how specifically you turn this traffic to money is easy.

Why websites are good for the little guy -  This makes doing business easier for the little guy. People make fortunes monetizing a website or simply find an outlet for your passions and are able to work at home. For me it makes perfect sense. If you sell intellectual goods or services or solve a problem people enjoy going to your website. If what you offer is unique and yours even better. The little guy does not need to shake hands, and wear suits with the elite to sell their products, they just need ideas.

The secret to making money online – Many people want to know how to make money online. My answer is build a resource or write content that will make people come back. Do you like to read? I do, so I try to write also and give people the ability to read your ideas. It takes a couple of years these days before you really start to make money online but so what.

Learn to make money online from someone who has

Many people ask me how do I monetizes my website? My recommendation is build a website that is interesting and get lots of traffic. After that the monetization aspect takes care of itself. Here are the ways people make money online, off their website. But here are the specific ways to get the money to come into your pocket.

• Sell you own products – This is the most effective and what people do the least. For example, I write software and will sell this when done. My friend writes book, real books, not e-books but the latter is also effective. You can self print at a local printer. The best things are products that solve a problem. If you take the time to make something of quality your profit margins will be high and your cost will be low. Outsourcing product creation is one way to do it but I prefer to create something myself. If you want a job done you have to do it yourself and no one will do as good a job as you.
• Sell other people’s products – This is what people do the most and is least profitable. I think if you have your own product then you are more passionate about it. People see it as your signature product and trust you as a person, rather than re-peddling someone else’s ideas. Search engines do not like recycled content anyway, which your website content tends to gravitate towards when you sell a product everyone else is talking about. But it is possible to make money this way if your website is built around quality unique content. You need to find a product, you personally believe in and has a high profit margin, a business niche.
• Private ads – Highest payout but you have to look for advertisers. It is important you do not pass page rank as not to skew search engines results.
• Trusted networks – Google type ads have the easiest set up and I recommend and I do.
• Donations – Could even be if you make a yearly donation you get special things on this site, like on a forum you get chat ability. This is a good model for forums. People can exchange pictures and connect or have access to premium content.
• Pay memberships – very profitable. One of my friends runs a dating site and charges 25 dollars a month and has 1000s of members. You do the math.  But it is hard to do unless you have a critical mass.

Of all these I recommend Google type ads. The payout is low to start but once you are a trusted provider with good content it seems payment goes up. The key is do not be spammy. Do not get rich quick.  Do only trusted things. No trying to pump your website. If you do the right things by focusing on content you will get noticed online. Be patient it takes a couple of years to get enough traffic, but myself and my friends have enough income to live fine and focus on other things like trading stocks etc and making our asset base grow (something I have not had time for various reasons).

I use a theme that does all the ad work for me. I think it is the easiest way. The design is not the best but it does not matter the SEO aspect is good as is ease of use. If you want to know the theme I use write me and I can point you in the right direction.

Therefore, with a theme in place and a WordPress platform,  my job is just to write content. Content always has been king and it will be even more. Nothing upsets me more when I come to a website that is not personal and just generic content mills.  Articles that add little value. Make your site your signature and convey personal experiences than broad sweeping statements.

I just watch the film ‘Social Networking’ and really was impressed with the idea. But the whole reason social networking is hot on the Internet is it is for people who want to socialize not run a business.   Two different ideas, however, web entrepeneurs sometimes mix the two ideas, and wrongly so. They even ask the question how do I make money with Twitter?

I have herd people even getting degrees in social networking. All the hip and cool people use social networking like Twitter and Facebook, so it must be good as it gets traffic, right?  The real question is can you make money with Twitter? It is a good question. If you can, how do you make money with Twitter?

Twitter seems to be taking over the web.  However, to make money online, something which I do, it is not just a matter of getting traffic to a website or jumping onto the newest social media bandwagon. If you want to make money online, you need to offer something of value, something useful and engage people in the conversation on your website. People need to find your site with targeted organic traffic.

How can you use Twitter to help you in in this process. Unless your 15 years old and want to Twitter your friends it is a waste.Unless you have a quality website and people choose to follow you on Twitter as they would with RSS, do not waste your time thinking of ways to earn money with Twitter. No one does.  Therefore, there is no way you can make money with Twitter.

My experience with Twitter

I have a twitter account and have never tried to build followers, so I have less than 100 followers.  I think the main thing with Twitter is you have to work on building friends.  One way is follow a lot of people and many of them have an auto follow.

Is Twitter just another Myspace or Squidoo

However, I think Twitter is just another case of salesmen selling salesmen, Squidoo2 if you may.  Or is it Myspace2 that is really cool people wasting time online.

How do you make money with Twitter?

You do not. My experience is its bottom feeder traffic, not easily convertible to anything than a sign on your blog that says “I have 20,000 Twitter follower”. Social media does not work.

My advice about making money with Twitter is your energy is better spend building your own sites. Always spend your time on your own website rather than someone else’s.  I mean lets be honest Facebook and Twitter are nothing more than a lazy man’s blog with the profits going to someone else.

Traffic does not convert in my experience, perhaps, I am mistaken and someone out there is a real honest for goodness Twitter millionaire. I would love to hear from people and their opinions about making money with Twitter.

Why do I know about this? I have very successful website with very little traffic from social media. I prefer direct traffic or organic search traffic. Search engines reward website that are trusted and quality. It will always be more valuable and it is not just a fad.

So use Twitter for write your friends but not to make money online.

The secret to making money online is imagination

I think the answer to how to make money is made is the way it has always been made. There is one key to all money-making success. What is it? Imagination.  Imagination is the key to success and is better than all modern business theory and all the blogs on how to make money online. This is why of the top ten richest people in the USA only two finished school. The reason is their imagination guided them, and not old recycled theories.  The purpose of this post is to tell you to use your imagination if you want to make money online fast.

At the end of this blog I give you some traditional and none traditional ways to earn income on the Internet. If you followed this advice this is all you will need to know.

So what is the secret to making money or making money online?

Right from the ancients:  “the imagination is where the divine resides.”  What, is this something like a Da Vinci code wisdom minute?  No. It simply means your real power as a human given to you from above is found in your imagination.

If you want to stand out from the crowd and get people to come to your website, you need to be imaginative.   People want interesting content. Everyone writes the same old same old. Be shocking unique and interesting and beautiful.

To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour.- William Blake

If your brain needs a jump-start for creativity try www.winwenger.com. This site in my opinion offers great advice on self-help, imagination, intelligence and applying creativity to your life. Maybe it is not the last word but it has good ideas.

Common sense rules to make money online

• Use WordPress or a good CMS system in an SEO theme. Do not use too many plugins, I use only four and my sites are some of the biggest on the Internet.  If you want an idea how to set this all up, I can point you in the right direction on how to do this.
• Do not use Social media marketing. It is a waste of time. It does not generate quality traffic and the traffic does not convert well. If people find you and naturally link to you, that is one thing but do not actively have a social media campaign.  Rather focus on building content.
• Do not build links. The only good link is an organic link. something that someone build for you with out you asking them.
• Do not read too much about SEO or SEM. It is a waste. There is not good way to trick search engines. The only way to advance in Search engines is write content people will enjoy.
• I know what I am talking about my websites get over 10,000 visits a day.

Make money online with imagination

• Do what you love and not trying to think of a crazy idea. Crazy extreme ideas to make money do not work as well as ordinary ideas executed well with imagination powering them.
• Use your imagination to build content for your website.  Do this by writing creative articles for your blog with the things you offer people and not try to create a usual idea. That is focus on something you like and really make a beautiful site with a lot of useful content. You will make money no matter what venture you try, as long as people are interested.
• Use your imagination from time to time to break up the monotony of writing to create funny viral things from time to time. I use xtranorma.com to create videos. It only takes a couple of house and the results are very rewarding.

I write language learning software and live full-time from my online projects. Therefore, I know what I am talking about. I have not worked in a real job in seven years. If you need more help with making money online I can do one on one consulting and help you A to Z get free and make money online. Contact me at markbiernat@op.pl.  I can help guide you. If you want free advice just leave a comment.

Books on investing

The following is a list of books I recommend:

• Stan Weinstein’s Secrets For Profiting in Bull and Bear Markets – this book is the best book written on investing in my opinion. It uses stage analysis. Back when it was written there was a service that provided the charts, today use charts on MSN money. I do not invest only with Stan’s Weinstein’s system but you need to be aware of it. It is technical analysis for everyone without getting to complex or too exotic.
• How to Make Money in Stocks: A Winning System in Good Times and Bad by Bill O’Neil – Again another book I do not use exactly but it is a book that gives you the base of growth investing. There is so much information in this book that it would take all day to find a stock based on these criteria. He uses a method called CANSLIM. In fact there are canslim screeners that can help you find the best stocks today.
• Market Wizards: Interviews with Top Traders by Jack Schwager – This book is for inspiration. It is a series of interviews of successful traders.

These are the three best books on the subject. If you read these books you have a good base for investing, or really trading. I skipped the classics like  Benjamin Graham’s Intelligent Investor and modern inspirational books on getting rich quick , but some are worth a glance. To be honest these books are a little data, more like 1990s but I have not come across new ones that are better or more robust in information.

Using a good site investment site

The best free investing and finance site online is MSN money.  The best free tool to use is MSN stock scouter and choose the top stocks.  They rate stocks from 1 to 10 . If you uses their top ten picks to build a portfolio then this will incorporate many of the things written about in the books mentioned above.

I also use a discount broker, I use Scottrade and never had a problem with a transaction in terms of price or execution.

If you want to be a short-term trader there are a lot of software programs out there. I am more of an investor and prefer not to trade like that. Day trading and short-term trading is an art in itself.

Can you make money in the Stock market?

Yes, expect to make about 8% return.  Does that take the wind out of your sail and demotivate you to invest on your own, in anything less than an index or manged fund?  Some trader told me that same thing, years ago and I stopped trading for a while as I was so depressed. But the reality is most people do not read the books I mentioned above nor do they invest mostly in MSN’s top stocks. This is why most people do not make more money in my opinion.  If you did you could make a lot more. I have. Some people get rich in a couple of years and retire.

Over the years I have done very well in investing. Let me know your thoughts on how to invest. My key advice is read those three books and use a quantitative firms research picks like stock scouter.