In a brief word, social media is one of the best ways to get started without a budget. It takes longer to build up a revenue because to advertise effectively on social media websites your advertising needs to be viral. That is to say, it needs to be memorable and has to have the appeal that your target audience will want to share it with others. If it is viral then fans of social media websites will ‘spread the word’ for you. So depending on what services you have to offer, I believe that through social media and creating a ‘viral’ ad is the way to go. I recommend that you focus your efforts on Facebook, StumbleUpon, YouTube, and Twitter. (Sorry Fast Pitch. You come if fifth though.) I am working on a social media viral ad for one of my online projects.

If you don’t yet, I also recommend having a blog and link your social media profiles to your blog. Blog about things related to your services but make your blog posts interesting. Perhaps with an interesting twist to the blog posts. Depending on the service that you have to offer, I recommend listing classified ads on free classified ad websites. Do this on a regular basis. It may not be the most effective but on occasion it will work even if it just sends web traffic back to your website or blog.

Another long term “budget-free” way to advertise is to ‘give away’ stuff whether it’s your services (depending on what they are) or something related to your services. Create “Raving Fans”, customers that are not only customers but your biggest fans. People that want to keep coming back for more. I think that giving away ‘free stuff’ to your customers and potential customers is a way to show them that you care. For example, you create a “Make Money Online” ebook and want to sell the ebook. In addition to the ebook, create a “Free Report” and give it away in exchange for your visitor’s name and email address. Build a permission-based email list and continue to show those people in your list that you care by asking them what they want then delivering it to them.

Once you start building some revenue from your services through these online advertising methods, I recommend that you create a budget for advertising. Then you can continue to use the above methods but also add paid advertising such as Google Adwords. Then you will be on your way to creating a regular stream of revenue through effective online advertising.

The trick is divided into three parts.

1. More visitors.

This can be done from search engines, social bookmarking / networking, and blog linking.

2. Staying on your site for long periods of time (stickiness)

The longer that visitors are on your site, the more likely it is that they will remember your site and want to come back.

3. Encouraging those visitors to come back frequently (repeat visitors)

Repeat visitors are more valuable than first time visitors.  Why?  Because they are your biggest fans!  Your biggest fans will tell their friends about your website and spread the word.  (Higher quality traffic)

Awesome examples:

YouTube.com – Millions of people frequent the site per day.  Why?  Because the site has new and fresh content (videos) on the site.  And it’s a community of internet users involving themselves in some way on the site – either uploading videos, watching videos, or commenting on videos.

Miniclip.com – Games, Games, and more Games.  Online games are a great way to keep visitors on a site for a long time (stickiness).  Besides, I’m sure people come back frequently for more games.

eBay.com – Online auctions.  People frequently return to the site to check up on bids and view newly posted auctions of interest.

Here are just a few examples of websites that create a lot of traffic because of the user-activity on these sites.

So you want a site that would attract a lot of traffic? Huh?  You need to think about how to involve other people (visitors) on your website.  A great way to do this is to start a blog.  Free and easy to setup at www.blogger.com or www.wordpress.com.  I mentioned a blog because visitors can make comments on your blog posts effectively participating on your site.

Controversy is one of the most popular subjects to blog about.  Most people will take a side and will talk about it around the water-cooler hopefully mentioning your site and their co-workers will check it out as well.

My personal suggestions would be to start a ‘review’ blog.  Start a blog and give your opinions about something that you’re into.  Whether it is movies, music, games, books, etc.

I have been on Yahoo Answers lately just responding to questions related to Search Engine Optimization and Small Business in general.  So last night I realized that I could take my answers and reformat them into a blog post.  Essentially, I was generating great content that I could use for blog posts.  I would just need to rephrase a few things because Yahoo Answers is meant to just be a response to one person’s question so instead of a blog post which is meant for everyone.

Check out Yahoo Answer Secrets

I got my hands on some videos about Yahoo Answers and I would love to share it with you.  It’s called Yahoo Answer Secrets.  Not only can you use Yahoo Answers as inspiration for new blog content but you can also recommend products to others on Yahoo Answers (this should be done with discretion!)  Yahoo Answer Secrets tells you everything that you need to know to get started on Yahoo Answers.

Check out Yahoo Answer Secrets

Well, if there’s not as much in your wallet or on your paycheck this year,  why not find cash value in some things that are lying around your home, in your basement or garage.  I have been doing exactly that and, if you’re a ‘newbie’ on the internet then I’ll show you how to turn that stuff into cash.

The easiest way to do that is to sell your stuff on auction websites or classified websites.  eBay and Craigslist are the first ones that come to mind.  eBay is great for selling things that are easier to ship because most likely the buyer won’t live close to you and you’ll have to ship it.  Craigslist is great for those items that are heavier, larger, or just plain akward to ship.  Expect to pay some fees if you sell it on eBay.  Craigslist is free for selling stuff.

eBay >> You can see what I have been listing for sale on eBay by clicking on the link below.

Visit my Auctiva Store!

Auctiva is a third-party company that helps you organize your auctions and they offer free tools that are very beneficial to eBay sellers.  Find out more at: www.auctiva.com.

Craigslist >> Who’s list? Craigslist!  If you haven’t heard of Craigslist, then you better start from the beginning – of the internet, that is!  (Don’t ask me what that means.)  Craigslist is one of the most popular websites in the world.  Pretty impressive for how they started out.  (On a side note, I always love hearing stories about how these most popular websites got started.)  Anyway, back on track.

Advantages of Craigslist over eBay.

• Sell stuff locally.
• It’s free.
• Create’s great exposure for your stuff.

Craigslist and eBay are both very good for making a little extra cash over the holidays.

I will be putting out some tutorials on eBay.  Both for beginners (newbies) and also some more advanced tutorials.  How to sell more effectively on eBay…

For more on Craigslist and using Craigslist as an affiliate marketer, check this out.

There’s been a ton of buzz around this system over the past few weeks and if you haven’t heard about it yet, let me just fill you in… It’s called the “Commission Blueprint” – a radical formula created by Tim Godfrey and Steven Clayton that exploits Clickbank and Google in such a devious way that the resulting profits are in the realms of the *insane*.

Of course, you will have heard this kinda’ thing a gazillion times before and to be perfectly honest so have I… But after checking this out, I can give you rock solid confirmation that this is the real deal, especially if you want to replicate a simple system that generates MASSIVE Clickbank commissions. Let me just throw some figures your way… – $6,513.04 in one day – $153,426.72 in 6 weeks – $526,422.83 in 7 months. …and the crazy thing is, these numbers were generated by promoting ONE Clickbank product, bidding on just ONE keyword…and without ANY help from JV partners or even an email list! …not to mention the fact that this simple affiliate campaign took just a few minutes to set up. How was it done?

Check out the story here.

This is a VERY VERY different ball game… In fact, if you’ve ever wondered why most affiliates struggle to produce a red cent in profit whilst others effortlessly rake in unfathomable Clickbank commissions seemingly with their hands tied behind their back, then sit up and take note, because you’re about to find out why.

—————- The Best Thing? —————-

You need no experience at all because they take you through the entire process on screen AND give you all the tools to actually make it happen.

—————- The Weird Thing? —————-

It’s frankly bizarre that they’re revealing this stuff. If it were me, I would’ve kept my mouth FIRMLY shut for sure. These guys do 7 figures a year with Clickbank consistently and generate far bigger numbers than virtually anyone else on the planet. Point being…if you’re a suffering affiliate, you NEED this material. Badly.

—————- The Bad News… —————-

There are only very limited spots available and judging by how fast this has spread around the net, they’ll go ultra fast… possibly in the next few hours. It has literally just gone live though so you should be in time… End result? Affiliates who FAIL to get hold of this information will be left fighting for scraps and ultimately will be in a world of hurt from now on; that much I can assure you… You can’t afford to be left out of the loop with this one…

1. Park your domain name with RevenueDirect.com.  Earn a little bit of revenue with by ‘parking’ your domain name with several parking service providers and they will put ads on that domain that you could earn some revenue from.  For an example of a parked domain, go to www.seattlestuff.net.
2. But Why Park your domain when you can quickly and easily turn it into a full website filled with automatically updated content and articles.  This is exactly what you can do with an account at WhyPark.com and earn revenue though text ads and adsense.  Go to www.woodworkerreview.com
3. Sell your domain name.  If you have scrapped your online business project and you have a good domain name then get it professionally appraised so you know what it’s worth then see what you can do about selling it.  Sell your domain with Sedo.com, GoDaddy Auctions, or even on eBay!  Let someone else use the domain name if you know that you’re not going to.

At first it really irritated me that these “gurus” that make money telling people how to make money online won’t help an internet marketer like me make money online.  I do want to clarify that a Joint Venture Partnership with me on this website project would be just as beneficial for them as it would be for my business.  It still bothers me a little bit but I can’t dwell on it.  I have failed plenty of times when it comes to making money online (a few years back).  I have learned a lot since then and one of the most important lessons is, you can’t count on anyone else but yourself when it comes to this type of business.  I wouldn’t mind getting into the “mainstream” internet marketing sphere because I think that it really helps your credibility when trying to convince someone to buy your ‘system’ because you can consistently make “$50,000 per month” and so on and so forth.

Another “secret” that internet marketing “gurus” don’t want you to know.  For a long time, there really hasn’t been any new, revolutionary technique to making money online.  

It all comes down to selling.

• Selling your products (ecommerce)
• Selling information (information marketing)
• Selling other people’s products (affiliate marketing)

There are new methods for the main types of an online business.  In my opinion, the best method to sell in any of these business models is through your own opt-in email list.  We’ll talk about building a list later.

I want to wrap up now by saying that I sort of expected the lack of acknowledgement from those internet marketing “gurus” and I don’t blame them because I know what it’s like to have a lot of projects to work on.  If you’re reading this and you want to get involved in Lifetime Internet Coaching then please leave a comment on this blog or visit this page to find out more.

I don’t go to lunch too often with this particular brother only because he lives away and was in town only for a few days.  He is a great guy and is an internet business newbie.   I was able to chat with him about making money online and the great benefits of setting up and running an online business.  He is quite a bit older than me and somehow missed the huge craze a few years back about using the internet to generate multiple streams of revenue.  We talked about something that would interest him as far as earning a living online.  After the conversation was all said and done, he said something that stuck in my mind the rest of the day.  He said, “I just need to find my niche.”

That was it!  That is the missing piece of the puzzle for most people when they want to get started with an online business.  I have some experience with this topic and I want to share the information that I have with all of you.

When starting to think of a niche or something to center your online business around, you need to focus your thoughts on what you’re interested in or something that you could become interested in.  Asked yourself these few questions.

1. What are your interests and hobbies?
2. What professional experience do you have?
3. When someone asks you for advice; what do they ask you and how do you answer them.

On the other side of the fence, if you are a barterer and a yard sale junkie then you can buy things for really cheap and list those items to resell online.  Be a bargain hunter and frequently visit those yard sales and thrift stores.  That just might turn into a regular additional stream of revenue.