NST Interview: Casting the Net for moneyI'm sure you have heard those radio commercials by now where a slick announcer tells you about an amazing program that allows you to sell things on the Internet that you never even have to touch. some of you might think it is some sort of online store scam or an Amazon store front. It's not. What it is is something far simpler.

    This system involves two parts:

  • Affiliate system
  • Advertising system

For this article we will assume that SuperDuperBookSeller dot com is out affiliate partner and Google AdWords is our advertising system.

Step 1: Research

The first thing you have to do is a little bit of research. Head on over to SuperDuperBookSeller and look at their selection. Is there a particular book coming out soon that you just know is going to be in hot demand and written about? Let's say that you find out a new book by "Keagan Sting" is due out in a few months and that everyone will be buying it. Even if SuperDuperBookSeller does not have that particular book listed yet you can still put your plan in action.

Step 2: Build the Link

Using your new affiliate account at SuperDuperBookSeller you need to craft a referral link (that includes your affiliate code) to the "Keagan Sting" section of their site. Even though the new book is not out yet getting people to click on your link and go to the site may get them to buy something else in anticipation of the coming new book or they might stumble onto the pre-order page when SuperDuperBookSeller adds it.

When building the link you need a title which can be as simple as "Buy Keagan Sting Books". You also need a couple words of descriptive text that runs below that. For our purposes we will use, "America's favorite author Keagan Sting has written over a dozen books. Why not read one before his new book comes out!"

Yes, it is lame but I'm not much of an advertising guy!

Step 3: Add the link to AdWords

Now you take your carefully crafted link and stick in into your AdWords account. You set the price you are willing to pay and set a ceiling on how much to spend per day.

This is the part where the money is supposed to start rolling in. The sad reality is that it may not work out that way for you.

Why do so many people fail at this point? Because they are all fighting over the same product! It's Keagan Sting for crying out loud! Everyone is buying up that keyword right now!

Step 4: Rethink

This is where you begin to realize that it is not as easy as the commercial made it out to be. Some people do get lucky but you can't run a business on luck. No, you need to do some serious research to figure out which items you want to try and sell with this system and which affiliate system you want to use.

I use AuctionAds as my affiliate network of choice. I also run multiple websites. I have experimented a little bit with AdWords and AdSense but I have never seen it as a reliable source of income. If you really want to make money online with an affiliate system you need to build a website around it.

Step 5: Product Reviews

Yes, the best way to make an affiliate system work is by mixing it in with a product review site. Why is this? It is because if someone has just read your product review than they are far more likely to follow a "buy this product now" link and follow through on the purchase.

Do not make the mistake of only writing positive reviews. People look at a positive review as a sales pitch and you will lose the trust of your readers. When writing reviews you need to be critical of something.

Selling gold? Be critical of the way the market jumps up and down on the price.
Selling books? Be critical of the gap between books in the series.
Selling cars? Make mention that as good as this car is it would be even better if it had some other thing.

The list goes on and on.

The point is that you can make money online, you just have to be willing to work at it.

NST Interview: Casting the Net for money image used under Creative Commons License from flikr user liewcf